


Tenebrae et Elegiae

by Jennifer-Oksana (JenniferOksana)



Series: Valmont Universe [5]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alien Invasion, Aliens, Alternate Universe, Depression, F/F, Femslash, Murder, Original Character(s), Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s), Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-28
Packaged: 2018-05-22 22:11:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 47,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6095599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenniferOksana/pseuds/Jennifer-Oksana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>"She had an horror of rooms, she was tired<br/>(you can't hide beat)<br/>When I looked in her eyes they were<br/>blue (but nobody home)<br/>She could've been a killer if she didn't walk<br/>the way she do (and she do)<br/>She opened strange doors that<br/>we'd never close again...</p><p>She began to wail jealousies scream<br/>Waiting at the light know what I mean</p><p>Scary monsters supercreeps keep me<br/>Running-- running scared</p><p>She asked me to stay and I stole her room<br/>She asked for my love and I gave her a dangerous mind<br/>Now she's stupid in the street<br/>(and she can't socialise)<br/>Well I love the little girl and<br/>I'll love her till the day she dies--" David Bowie</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> "She had an horror of rooms, she was tired  
> (you can't hide beat)  
> When I looked in her eyes they were  
> blue (but nobody home)  
> She could've been a killer if she didn't walk  
> the way she do (and she do)  
> She opened strange doors that  
> we'd never close again...
> 
> She began to wail jealousies scream  
> Waiting at the light know what I mean
> 
> Scary monsters supercreeps keep me  
> Running-- running scared
> 
> She asked me to stay and I stole her room  
> She asked for my love and I gave her a dangerous mind  
> Now she's stupid in the street  
> (and she can't socialise)  
> Well I love the little girl and  
> I'll love her till the day she dies--" David Bowie

**Johnny:**

I am about to die.

Again.

I can't say I wasn't expecting this to happen. I didn't want it to happen, but not even I can stop what's coming my way. Sometimes the Grim Reaper has it in for you, no matter how often you offer to play chess against him.

This will be violent and painful. I don't want that either, but it's no great surprise. I've expected to die violently ever since I watched the old smoking bastard gasp up at me from a floor in New York. That was six or eight months ago, I can't remember when, but I remember all the minute details. His suit was a bluish-grey, slightly more grey than blue. He wore a pinstriped tie, and the pack of cigarettes he was always fumbling with was half-empty, the top of the box opened slightly, sitting placidly in his shirt pocket. He blinked a lot before finally he stopped blinking and stopped moving. The details of his death have been seared into my brain.

I hated that man fiercely. He made my life difficult and I suspect without his meddling, a few people I love would still be alive. For that and more, I still hate that man. But on that night, that night I can't even place anymore, I tried to save him. I remember beating at his chest, half-hysterical, trying with everything I had in me to keep him alive. Because I knew. I knew that she who lives by the sword dies by the sword, and I wanted to change my fate.

Now I think it's time to give up at last. It's almost as if time is repairing itself, I think. I was supposed to die years ago in the warehouse under those boxes. I had been redeemed then in some way. For the last time I can recall in my life, I was a decent person. Then I was spared. It wasn't fair the way it happened. I was plucked back from the jaws of death and I promptly took that restored life to do things far worse than I had done in the previous years I'd had. It was adding insult to injury. I've cheated lots of things. People, principles, societies, but I've discovered that when you cheat death, it's not for very long.

I'm going to die. I can't change this. There's a bullet hurtling at me at speeds I used to know by heart, because it amused me, rather than because I feared the bullet. The metal cylinder will be pushing itself through layers of cloth and skin and muscle and sinew in less than a second in a violation far more lethal than rape.

It will be sudden, violent, and jarring. My body will leak fluid: blood and mucus and liquid that's really supposed to stay inside the packaging. My knees will give out from the recoil of the bullet's force. Gravity and surprise will propel me onto my back as the bullet exits through bone and muscle and skin and clothing, falling into a sewer and disappearing, barely affected by our intersection, lost forever in the sludge underneath the Washington Mall.

I will find myself staring up at the sky, the sky which is the peculiar dying blue of autumn, painted with the feathers of clouds. I think that the clouds will be the last things I see and I don't think that's terrible. Clouds are beautiful and peaceful, contrary to my own life and personality.

Dying will be beautiful in its own way. There will be colors of fantastic contrast involved with the entire gory event. Imagine all the colors. The sky will be marble-streaked in soaring shades of blue and white and the pavement will have stony whites and greys and beiges. The increasing pool of blood will be red for the few moments until it starts to turn brown. The blood might be the most beautiful thing of all.

There will be the stark contrast of my expensive designer black and white suit. There will be the soft beige and brown contrasts of my hair, my face, and the leaves that drift down. It will be beautiful, and for that I thank God. I thank something-- whatever I don't believe in-- for all the beauty I can remember in these last seconds.

I think I'm afraid. Once upon a time (maybe ten minutes ago) I would have known for certain, but now it's all a blur. I'm may not be really afraid, but the strident, deliberate sound of my heart throbbing in my ears suggests it. I should be very afraid of that bullet that is heading towards me. But I'm so calm, I can't tell.

Please God. If I have to die-- I don't want to die!-- let it be quick. I don't think I can bear seeing my life flash before my eyes. I can't stand it. I remember enough of my life to know that reliving it can't be pleasant.

Shouldn't this goddamned bullet with my name on it have finally hit me by now? Shouldn't it all be over already? Aren't I already dead? Why is time moving so fucking slowly? I could live my whole life over in the time it's taken for this one bullet to reach the vein right below my heart. I hope to God that's not the point. I would rather not live my life over again.

I close my eyes. I can't stop what's coming. And the first technicolor images of my life, as bloody and violent as my last, start to fill the widescreen movie theatre of my mind. Death will not be cheated in any way. I now have immutable proof of that.

De profundis, Deus--

* * *

 

**Scully:**

Morning comes once again, as oblivious to me as it could possibly be. This is the second time in as many years I've been adrift in a world of unimaginable loss, and I want to draw the curtains closed even tighter so I can't see that nothing, not a single leaf or flower, stayed back in any deference to me--

When she told me she killed him, she sneered and I wanted to die. I didn't see that sneer. Instead I felt it imprinted into my nerve cells with vindictive, hateful force. I felt it in every cell in my body. It was only one word, squeezed like a last drop from her well of decency. Yes. Johnny said yes.

With that yes, she killed Mulder a thousand times for me because she destroyed every hope I had with it. She not only killed him, she spat on the grave with that yes. Because Johnny Valmont doesn't have a name. Her fingerprints could be all over the body, the murder weapon, and the notarized confession, but she would walk away free and without any sort of guilt.

Damn her. Is anyone seeing this situation for what it is? Can't anyone else feel the enormous miscarriage of justice here? I'm trapped, sitting here, lost in the cold emptiness of my apartment, a cigarette dangling from one hand, the other clasping the greasy glass that once contained my empty drink. One of many, many empty drinks, I realize, eyes scanning the room and noticing the pale remnants of plenty of self-pitying abuse. Damn.

I'm just plain fucked up these days and nothing like the romantic veneer I sulked in a year or so ago when I thought Johnny was dead. That was the fury of a woman scorned with no one sympathizing with her. It was living, but living on the edge. For some reason, it gave me fury enough to live on, even in despair, because it wasn't despair. It was regret and betrayal and pain. Despair is different. You don't feel anything when you're in despair, just the wish to fall asleep again so you don't have to feel the little you can feel.

This is despair. Look at me-- smelly, cruel remnants of weeks of drinking, smoking, crying, cursing, and general mistreatment of body, mind, and soul. I'm no fading figure in genteel decline. I'm the stringy leftovers of sheer self-hatred. And it's not even working properly-- I'm still alive.

With the little energy I have, I put the cigarette out and set the glass down. I rub my eyes with my hands and realize they smell of cigarettes and gin, maybe a little boozy vomit. The scent is coming from my skin. It's not attractive. I'm not well, either. Instead of fading in a last blaze of debauched, macabre glory, I look like a hardened, tacky skeleton who will live on forever, tagging off others' free drinks and kindness without even a thank you.

Damn, what a disappointment. I can't even die properly. Like most of my life, I'm a sham and an also-ran. I've let the world and the people I love run me, and instead of standing up and listening to myself when it was vital, I thought it better and safer to let the voices of wisdom and experience-- or just plain power-- take the lead.

Where the fuck has that gotten me-- or any of us? It got Mulder's ass dead, it got Johnny exactly what she wanted, it has the American people living some sort of covenant with the devil, while I just stand here, informed and afraid of a Monday morning, as duplicitous in the conspiracy as anyone who created it. I listened to someone else, and I get to exist in this static hell for my trouble.

This, as Johnny would say, is fucking weak.

With one sweeping motion that surprises me with its raw energy, the floor is covered with glass, alcohol, ash, and other assorted filth. The crash is magnificent, symphonic even in its din. Under my shoes-- and thank God I have this ragged pair on my feet-- the broken glass crunches musically, beating a syncopation to the underlying beat of the headache in my skull. Thud, thum thump thudda thump thump. If it weren't for the pain, I think it would sound very invigorating, or at least harmonious.

I pull the curtains open as wide as I can possible, and stare at the light of day. It burns my eyes, which are dry from dehydration and canned air. I wonder, suddenly, if I've had anything to drink that wasn't alcoholic in weeks. I doubt it intensely. My lips feel like they're covered in a layer of chapped tissue-- or ash. My tongue is a furry, tasteless rug sitting in my mouth uselessly. It sure as hell hasn't been much use in my life, has it?

From the vaults of my memory, I think-- I should have been a pair of claws-- ragged claws-- my eyes sting some more. What's that from? What am I thinking about? I can't remember, but it seems significant. But I don't know, and so it slips away.

Shit, I could really use a drink of water. In fact, the idea of water, cool water slipping down my throat and my neck, running clear tracks down my skin sounds pretty good. No, it sounds wonderful, better than chocolate. Better than sex. I need water badly. So I lurch for the refrigerator, slow but steady, in my own personal desert looking for an oasis.

My God, my head hurts. And I have been drinking stuff in my depression that I would never imagine was my style-- Southern Comfort? Vodka? Ouch. It's very unlike me to go for such strong drink, but I suppose I was desperate, and desperate people do funny things.

The bottles of alcohol lie on the floor, in the sink, on top of the refrigerator. They huddle together like orphans, a meager swallow or two left in each bottle. Damn. I need a drink of water. Better yet, I need to shower. I need to do something to clean all this lingering filth off me, and wake up from this horror movie of a life.

In the searing, beating water of the shower, I watch the trails of water slip down my skin, stinging it, finding each crevice and inch of my skin like a lover's fingers. My head is pounding ruthlessly, my eyes sting and ache sharply, and my body is intensely sore-- a deep, comfortless sore that makes it hard to move at all. But despite that, and everything, I realize that I'm alive and well, and there's nothing short of a genuine suicide attempt that's going to kill me soon.

For some reason, really trying to kill myself doesn't appeal at all.

As the water goes from searing to icy cold, a sudden epiphany slips back up from the drunken recesses of my mind. Why do I want to die so very much? Why would I spend all this time and effort keeping myself alive nearly forty years and now decide that it's not worth it?

I lean against the moldering tile in the freezing water, stunned. And then I start to cry; sharp, jagged little wails that sound like keening.

"Mulder," I hear myself gasp. "Oh God, Mulder."

After crying until I can't anymore, I turn off the water. I'm alone, shivering wet and naked in a shower. I've lost the one man that I loved and I've lost the work I loved, too. My world crashed around my shoulders weeks ago, and I still haven't gotten past denial.

I scream at the top of my lungs then, surprising me yet again.

This has gotten old. My tears aren't going to change anything. I have spent my entire life in this sickening stasis, expecting the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus or God-- or more truthfully, my father or Mulder or Johnny or the US Government-- to make things right, so I can do my job.

That, I believe, is what as known as an enabling fantasy used by a semi-delusional passive-aggressive sado-masochist to keep her life from being more than she can handle. It's not pretty to look at yourself in the mirror and realize you haven't done badly with your life, but then you realize you haven't done anything at all, so how can you know?

I've trotted along and half-heartedly criticized my entire life, willing to follow anyone with strong resolve. I thought I had strong resolve, too, a clear path, but it's all been a veneer. I'm looking at Dana Scully at rock bottom, and she's hideous.

It's when I stumble into my bedroom, half-covered in a towel, blinking at the light of day, that I get extremely angry. Maybe I have been too passive. Maybe I haven't spoken up, or fought back when I should have fought. I'm not helping myself by drinking this much or crying. It's no good to lock myself in my apartment and hope for divine intervention. I have acted before. I know how to fight back, and there's no better time than now.

I stare at myself in the mirror again, completely naked. It could be worse. A week of salads, baked potatoes, and plenty of protein, and some sunlight, and I won't look so much like an emaciated skeleton. The color would come back to my cheeks. The only question is why? What's going for me now?

It hits me like the next throb of my hangover headache. Justice. Or even more suitably, vengeance. Something like sheer, bloody revenge sounds rather attractive at this juncture. And I'm sensible enough not to want to immolate myself in the name of a cause. I don't need revenge on the world-- or if I do, I'm not suicidal enough to want to take it. I won't get much satisfaction from it, either.

There's one person I want to destroy. I've wanted it so badly I've torn myself to pieces because I was afraid to do it. But she's provided me a way to do it, finally, by leaving me nothing left to fear. What's she going to do? Kill me? Get me fired, leave me alone and friendless with nowhere to turn? I don't care. I'm finally doing this. I'm taking her down.

I stare at myself in the mirror, pale, stringy, with bloodshot eyes. I really need to clean myself up. As I turn away to the mirror and try to find something clean in my wardrobe, some old fact I learned in a college or high school class starts echoing in my head. Animals at bay are at their most dangerous.

Am I at bay? Or merely at my most dangerous?

* * *

 

**Spender:**

Fuck life.

And that's pretty much what I've done, I realize as I rummage around in my pockets looking for enough change to get some Krispy Kremes and a cup of coffee. I've made enough bad decisions for four people's lives and it's taken me to a place I deserve to be: Hell.

In this case, Hell is New York City, and a fashionable part of the city at that apparently, because all the people walking by me are sneering without the decency to throw me a quarter or two for a goddamn donut. Yeah, they can all enjoy Hell, too.

Finally, some guy who apparently wants me off the sidewalk because I'm bringing down property values throws me a dollar. I pick it up and walk into the donut shop, wishing for a miracle.

My father is dead. I don't know how to react to that. He didn't like me anyway, but it's still something of a shock to know the man died almost mundanely of a heart attack. If we were anything close to normal, the fact that my father was in his mid-sixties, a high-powered executive smoker who was a complete workaholic and emotionally repressed, died of a heart attack next to his young female protege during a late night at the office, the story wouldn't raise an eyebrow. An everyday tragedy, so to speak.

All of this normality doesn't help me. I'm desperately in need of a steady job and for some reason the drug-dealing life doesn't seem to fit me-- not until I get a better suit and a gold tooth or two, anyway. Ha. Petty crime doesn't seem like a job, anyway. It's a time occupier until one is set for life, dead, or hooked up with something better.

I almost wish I could stomach walking into my father's old office, staring at his bitch replacement in her Armani suit, perfect manicure, and lips curled in a sneer and asking if I could have a job in her organization. But I couldn't do it, knowing first of all she'd laugh in my face and secondly, I would lose my mind if she did let me have a job.

Life is a big sordid bitch. I just want to have a job-- any sort of job where I can afford to eat and sleep and perhaps watch television. But most entry-level jobs look down on drug convictions and felony questioning, even if you're not wearing a rumpled suit and look like you haven't eaten in three days.

I don't think about it as I get my donut and coffee and sit down to watch the world go by. I don't hear the door open until the man is sitting across from me in the booth, aiming a gun at my groin.

"You're Jeffrey Spender, aren't you?" he asks pleasantly.

I nod at him, wild-eyed. He's one of those faceless, cookie-cutter types with hair-colored hair and hazel eyes that worked for my father in droves. I couldn't place him on a police lineup if I tried. He looks at me with a pleasant, expressionless smile and nods.

"Not doing too well, are you?" he asks in a voice that almost conveys giving a damn.

"No," I manage to stammer out. "Do you work for Johnny?"

"In letter," the man replies. "In spirit, I'm her worst enemy. Except for perhaps you, Mr. Spender."

"What do you want?" I ask.

"I want to give you a job, Mr. Spender," the man says. "Rather, my employers are interested in giving you a job. If you'll come with me, you can meet with them and handle all of the business properly."

He stands up, and gestures with his head that I'm supposed to follow him. My stomach turns a flip-flop. I'm in trouble. Even if I wanted to tell this guy no thanks, I don't think I have a choice. So I get up and follow him out into the street where a black Lincoln is waiting for us. I almost wonder if Alex Krycek will be driving, except for the fact he's dead and if he were alive, he'd be too busy banging Johnny on her desk right now to be of use.

"You look somewhat dazed, Mr. Spender," the guy says dryly.

"I've been here before too many times," I answer. "It feels just like old times, except I wasn't a bum in old times."

"Sure you were, Jeff," the guy says, opening the door. "Just back then, you were a bum in a nice suit."

I suppose in a way, he's got my number, so I sit down quietly and let the Lincoln take us to the men (or whatever) with the real power, hoping that maybe, just maybe, I'll get something to eat before I'm dragged back into the world of triple-crossing intergalactic conspiracies that make no more sense than my 1040 long form.

When we reach the tall, imposing building and the car stops, I am feeling like a deer under a very large target, or maybe a pawn. But my new friend is positively gracious as he ushers me into the building and away from the Lincoln.

"Do you have a name?" I ask, feeling moronic. The guy looks at me and nods solemnly, but doesn't bother to share as he presses the button for the elevator. We get in, don't talk, and let the car take us up to the fourteenth floor.

"Their office is right through the doors on the end," the guy says as we get out of the elevator. "Good luck, Mr. Spender."

"You're not coming with me?" I ask, feeling something congeal in the back of my throat.

"It's not in the job description," he replies, shrugging. "Good bye, Mr. Spender."

"Yeah," I mutter as I push through the doors, leaving him behind. I pause, silently taking in the scene before me. It's a dark, heavily paneled office, with four or five men-- at least, they look like men-- looking over a dossier. A man I used to know is making his bosses coffee. "Hello."

"It's good to see you, Jeffrey," the oldest one says. "We've been keeping an eye on you. Have a seat."

I sit down in the mahogany-colored leather wing chair, feeling the luxurious, buttery smoothness of the material, conscious of my grimy appearance.

"I'm not sure that's a good thing, sir," I say cautiously. "With all due respect, I'm not quite sure why I'm here."

Another man-- a man I'm very certain is an extraterrestrial-- stands up and looks directly at me with understanding eyes. "You're here because we need you, Spender," he says to me in melodic tones. "You are of course familiar with the new leader of the Project-- a Ms. Johanna Valmont."

"Johnny? Yeah," I say. "What about her?"

"She has become divisive," another man says. "She has caused a rift in the Project. You understand that Ms. Valmont is of course an extraordinary person, full of ambition and drive that is most admirable. But we distrust her motives."

I nod uncomfortably. "I understand completely, sir. She has an air of always being most willing to serve her own agendas first."

The second man nods again, liquid, too perfect in his movement. "You understand very well, Mr. Spender. I am very pleased. You'll be perfect for a small task that we need done."

I nod, and squirm. Small tasks in this organization are rarely something like taking the boss' laundry to the cleaners, or getting flowers for his wife. Small tasks can involve the overthrow of governments or the odd kidnapping or murder.

"Yes, sir?"

"First I need your assurance that we can rely on you, Mr. Spender," the man said, a small air of menace coming into his posture. "This will have to be absolutely confidential. Plausible deniability must be maintained. Do I have your assurances, Mr. Spender?"

It's an offer I can't refuse. I look at him, nod, and then say, "Of course, sir. Now what would you like me to do?"

I've made it out of hell today. I think I'm somewhere far, far worse now.

* * *

 

**Johnny:**

I am fully dedicated to my life as a so-called "evil" executive, so much so that I've learned to be a "day person."

This may not sound remarkable, but it is for me. Most of my life, I was a night creature. High noon usually found me in bed sleeping. Three in the morning was usually when I got my second wind. If I was forced to work days, I did it sullenly, and still stayed up until the wee hours of the morning bitching about it.

Being a creature of the night-- pun only somewhat intended-- has its benefits. People behave differently at night. They transform. Pretense is stripped away, and you're often left with a vulnerable, real human being instead of a welter of workday prejudices. I understand night ways better than day ways. I miss them, too. But as the controlling figure in an international/intergalactic drama/conspiracy, I've had to sacrifice them for more important things.

I'm up at six in the morning, sometimes earlier. I like to watch the sun rise and know that it's another day I've got to stop the onslaught of panic and horror in the streets. Sunrises are beautiful, too, and there's not nearly enough beauty in the world. I get incredibly energetic as I bounce for the shower. That's my time to clean away all the stink and stickiness of the previous night. If there's an occupant in the bed, he takes that as his cue to discreetly get himself a taxi. By the time seven-fifteen rolls around, I'm dressed, and working on doing my hair and makeup, and saying hi to the baby.

Life is pretty damned good. In fact, life is great. Ever since Jack Colquitt, cigarette-smoking-conspirator-asshole-extraordinare was put to rest in a cemetery somewhere in upstate New York without a single mourner or a single tear and the murder case of Agent Fox William Mulder was discreetly shunted to the side by DCPD, I've been able to breathe much easier. The weight's off my chest, so to speak.

More importantly, I've gotten laid at long last. It's breathtaking what getting a good, hearty, all-American fuck will do for a woman's sense of purpose. I've been revived. Plus, the entire guilt complex from the entire clawing my way to the top over the bodies of my nearest and dearest business has been properly assuaged.

Yes, I've come to my senses about that business as well. Alex Krycek should have gotten out of my way, case closed. As for Dana Scully, she should have never attached herself to a loser like Fox Mulder. That's her problem, not mine. I'm not responsible for the poor lifestyle choices of others.

In the matter of my celibacy-ending fuck, there's not much to tell. Sex is sex. He said his name was Kurt and that he was on-air talent for a major cable network. I'm not much of a cable viewer. I didn't recognize him, although he had the utter smugness of on-air celebrity. But I didn't care if he'd interviewed Madonna. He was alone in a tacky upscale singles' bar, so I took pity on him and myself. He was pretty good for a man I judged to be the master of his own domain and no one else's. Or maybe I was desperate. Either way, it went well.

I don't know why I'm thinking about Kurt at all. It fills the moments between home and work, I suppose, and it's not as if I have a negative memory of the man. It just doesn't seem to be very important in the scheme of things.

Getting out of my opulent, well-waxed car and walking into my office building, I have an epiphany. Living life to the fullest is all in the style. I know that's a problematic idea. But it's the little things that make and break us. When I walk into my office, I want the crystal vase of velvety red roses to be fresh and perky, I want my mail opened and sorted on my desk, and I want an intern to be ready to go and get my coffee and bring it back hot.

Screw all that anti-materialist whining I hear in art and movies. I'm paying to go see their art, aren't I? I want my "stuff", I want my details, and I don't want to be hassled because I know the difference between Armani and Wal-Mart, thank you very much. Connoisseurship is all about being able to discern quality. It's about having style in any circumstance. I was born with that talent in spades, and I absolutely do not regret having it.

I pluck one of the rose petals and examine it before I sit down at my desk to look at today's agenda. Murder, mayhem, lying to the press, et cetera-- it's like being a member of the Clinton Administration, but what I cover up Americans would actually give a damn about. It's also news they would get unnecessarily hysterical about. Their hysteria would not stop the Apocalypse if I can't stop it, so it's better they go along with their little lives for now and be happy.

Justification-- it's a beautiful thing, isn't it?

I stop playing with the rose petal and look at my to-do list. What appears to be on today's agenda are a long series of conferences. First I have to meet with the new group of scientists I have working on the vaccine/cure for Purity. Then there's a briefing with some morphing bounty hunters and other assorted non-humans who are most likely looking for the very scientists I've been conferencing with. I'll smile, I'll nod, I'll advance them a few crumbs of information, and then I'll call a judicious lunch break.

Then over catered-in Italian from places that don't cater, I'll call Bethany and find out all about my bundle of joy. Danielle's apparently a shoo-in for the best and most progressive preschools if she keeps up her activities as an apparent toddler genius. Yes, that is maternal pride speaking. Sue me if it gives me a warm fuzzy to hear my kid's got the right stuff in a world that's teeming with wrong.

I'll spend most of my afternoon making the decisions that make the world go round. I'll sign off on things, make calls to my underlings, and go home about six or seven, after letting my current beau know if he needs to come over or not.

This is my life, and it's ending one minute at a time. I don't think that's a particularly bad thing. I enjoy my life. It's tense and busy and I'm doing something that I really find interesting. Perhaps this sounds a little mundane considering what I find really interesting is manipulating the fate of the world. But to each his or her own level, after all.

As I sit down at my nice cherry desk that is a certified antique, fire up my computer which is certified a year ahead of anything on the market, and start looking at my notes which are for my eyes only, I realize that this job is supposedly to give me too much stress to handle. All kidding aside, I run a large conspiracy in which I hide from the public that there are in fact extraterrestrials, that they don't like us, and if we're not careful, that we're all going to end up very disgusting incubators for lizard things. Sounds wonderful, doesn't it?

But I'm an adrenaline junkie. I like for my pulse to race. I like for my breath to catch in my throat and my mind to be focused one step ahead of the rest as I outrun the clock and deceive the world in all of its cynicism. My job and my life are the ultimate rush. I've really found nirvana. Sex, power, money, and of course, work to do.

It's what every true American is after, right? Until they lose their nerve and start whining about how they're looking for some sort of spiritual or artistic fulfillment and the pursuit of all of sex, power, money, et cetera-- now referred to as materialism-- is a big empty sham. In my opinion, that's only if you've done it wrong. If you don't appreciate more than possession, you'll never be happy with things.

I open my first file of the day, take a deep breath, and jump into the work. I do not feel empty. I am finding something magical in this power trip. I am not looking for something else. And after my fingers hit the keyboard and I start reading into the latest results of some test vaccine or other, it's true.

* * *

 

**Skinner:**

The secret that any supervisor worth his salary hides from the employee is that crisis is a necessary evil. If something isn't ready to melt down or if the world isn't about to end, most work in the world-- including my own job as an Assistant Director of the FBI-- could be done by a couple of trained monkeys.

On second thought, I don't think we'd need trained monkeys. An untrained chimp could sign off on these "streamlining" government forms and hand them to the secretaries, who do all the real work around here. If there's ever a real revolution of the proletariat, it will be led by the secretaries. They'll run the world after it's all over, and things might finally get done around here. Need proof? Just look at a former secretary I used to know, Johnny Valmont.

I know I'm being cynical and bitter. I've been in a state of upheaval with the cold-blooded murder of Fox Mulder, the subsequent hysterical resignation of Dana Scully, and the way Johnny and her legal team have completely stonewalled me about any rights I have to our daughter. I would like to do the right thing by Danielle. I may loathe Johnny, but I would like to know my daughter and I'm willing to do my duty in raising her, whatever that may be.

But that's all only secondary. Foremost in this ulcerating set of worries is Dana Scully. My daughter will survive, if for no other reason than Johnny has excellent security and pays a woman forty grand a year to mother her. Dana Scully handed me a letter of resignation almost six weeks ago and I haven't heard from her since. Nobody has. I want to drop by her apartment, to see if she's all right.

When I say all right, I mean still living and legally sane. I have no illusions about the hell she's going through. Mulder's death hit me hard and she loved him more than anyone. It doesn't help that his body is mysteriously lost somewhere. I want to help her in any way I can. I want to do something other than sign off on more cases that don't seem to matter.

Kimberly pokes her head in the door. It bothers me suddenly that she's still too nervous to assert her space in my office after ten years working together. Am I that difficult to work for?

"Sir?"

"Yes?"

"Dana Scully is here to see you," she says. Speak of the devil. "She's insisting she see you right now."

"That's fine, Kimberly," I say. "Show her in."

She melts away, a modern-day geisha girl and Dana Scully enters and asserts space. My God, does she ever assert her space, pushing past Kimberly and standing in front of me, looking like she's just sobered up from the bender of all time. It reminds me of the weeks after I got home from Vietnam, trying to figure out what the point was and finding cold comfort from a bottle of Jim Beam and a lot of marijuana laced with acid.

"Agent Scully," I say, rising to my feet.

"Doctor Scully," she replies. "I resigned, remember?"

She looks good for looking like hell. There's something different about her hair. It's a dark red, and it's got more layers or something. It looks fuller, but in a good way. There's a pair of thick black sunglasses sitting on the crown of her head, and a rich color of lipstick on her mouth. She's also wearing a lot more leather than she did as an FBI agent. The skirt goes right below her knee, black leather with a slit up to there in the side, under a crumpled, sexy white blouse and black boots with huge, chunky heels. All of this, under a leather coat that reaches the floor, is amazingly, arousingly wild.

But it's her look that has me paralyzed. Forget the clothes, forget the stance. Dana Scully is staring at me, and my mouth has gone dry. After a moment of stunned shock, I realize that she's waiting for me to say something. I need to say something now. I need to open my mouth and say anything that isn't something about how good she looks and how sorry I am about Mulder.

"I was sorry that you resigned," I say, fumbling with my tie. "You were an excellent agent."

"I was an excellent sidekick for Mulder," she replies acidly. "Let's drop the small talk, Skinner. I've decided to make some changes in my life, and I need your help."

The undeniable connotation of her words hits me in the gut. I have a pretty good guess what's she planning. It's obvious. Revenge, plain, sweet and simple. I also think there's nothing I can say that will change Scully's mind about getting revenge. She's not a woman that changes her mind.

What I don't know if I want to be a part of this ongoing blood feud. So many people have died already and it hasn't changed anything. I look up at her with deceptive disinterest.

"What do you want from me, Scully?"

"I want access to the X-Files. All of them."

Her voice is as steely and cold as the barrel of a gun in your face. No force on earth is going to stop Dana Scully from getting access to her old files and continuing her revenge. But for everything else I know, I can't figure out her plan. There might not be a plan, but I doubt it. I know Scully, and she's methodical and damnably effective when she wants to be.

"Why?" I ask, stalling for time.

"I'm going to finish a job I should have started a long time ago," she says. "I'm going to destroy Johnny Valmont, sir."

There's the confirmation I didn't want to hear. I stare at her, trying to look my most stony-faced and monolithic.

"Could you sit down while we discuss this, Scully?" I ask. "You've asked me for a large favor."

"I've asked you for my life's work and for my partner's life's work. I'm asking for the chance to get justice for a man we both respected, sir. The DCPD can say what it wants, but you know and I know that Johnny Valmont gunned Mulder down in cold blood. We know I won't ever get justice through the proper channels. And right now, I'm willing to take whatever I can get."

I want to close my eyes and make her disappear. I cannot condone the course of action she's advising. I may want to. I do know that Johnny killed Mulder. I know that the woman deserves to rot in prison before she rots in Hell. But what Scully wants is just as bad. It's against the law, it's against ethics, and even if I feel that I'm doing the right thing in the pit of my stomach, I can't allow this to happen.

"No, Scully," I say. "I can't allow you to do that. Those files are the property of the FBI, and to give them to you is against protocol. Much more importantly is that you're suggesting you will use those files in the commission of a felony. I am an assistant director of the FBI. I can't in good faith allow this."

Her lips draw back in a sneer and her eyes narrow. I'm seeing a new Scully today and she's angry and cruel.

"Why not? Afraid the American people will find out what part you've had in working against them and crucify you?" she asks sharply.

That's a low blow and coming from Scully, who I've defended so often, it's extraordinarily unfair. It makes me angry. I've been a friend of hers more often than she could ever imagine, and this is what she thinks of me? How dare she?

"What about you, Scully?" I ask, stung by anger. "Aren't you afraid of the same thing?"

"I know what I've done wrong," she growls at me. "I've been a tool for every corrupt man and corrupt institution that I've come across in my life. I am sick and tired of it. I intend to fight back, and you have two choices. You can either help me or you can get the hell out of my way, sir."

"You're going to get yourself killed," I tell her.

"Who gives a damn?" she replies, springing back to her feet. "I am trying to do this the right way, sir. I want it documented that I'm not out for vigilante justice for kicks. I am going to prove it was justice, and then I'm going to--"

She stops, and the breath catches in her throat. Thank God. There are many things I never want to do in my life, and one of them is giving a deposition that Scully told me in the Hoover Building that she was going to commit murder.

"What? Blow her head off? Scully, like her or not, Johnny's a respected and wealthy private citizen. Not to mention that she's a young mother."

"A young mother? Johnny? Are you fucking kidding me?" she asks. "Is this what's holding you back? You don't want to take care of the kid, but you don't want it to die, so you support Johnny?"

If she's trying to make me angry, she's succeeded admirably. God damn her. Who is she to suggest that I'm pandering to Johnny?

"Is that your opinion of me?" I ask. "That I'd let myself behave dishonorably just because I don't want to take care of my own child? You can go straight to hell then, Scully."

She moves towards me, a vision in black leather and red fury. I glare back at her, unafraid of this madwoman standing in front of me in the white heat of her fury. She's not thinking clearly. I am. If I give her the files, I'm giving a loaded gun to a maniac, but she's a suicidal maniac on the edge of implosion. I may not hurt anyone other than Scully, and as contemptible as it may seem, it may end up being the wisest course of action.

"Are we done then?" she asks, snapping out each word and giving it a special and particular venom. For a moment I catch her eyes, and instead of fury, I see what's really hiding there. I remember Vietnam again. I remember what it's like to need revenge in the isolation of despair. Even as my stomach turns and I try to warn myself, I stand up.

"They have them all stored on computer now," I say. "It's supposed to be impossible to break into."

She pauses, relaxes, her body losing some of that tension it had built up in our confrontation. "I suppose impossible is a word open to interpretation. Can you give me a little more information, sir?"

Heart in my shoes, I look at her again. I almost say no, but the pity and the sick devotion I have to this woman and to the memory of the man she lost overwhelms my sense of resolve. I give her what she wants, and may God have pity on my soul.

* * *

 

**Scully:**

I should swear off drinking. I really should, but I need a little liquid courage right now. The Gunmen, after hours of bribes, begging, and finally outright threats took my intelligence from Skinner and made it into files. Lots and lots of files, which I will crunch into evidence which will then transmute, with the philosopher's stone of revenge, into the end of Ms. Valmont's reign of terror.

So this glass of excellent merlot-- no more distilled spirits for me, thank you-- is not actually courage. It's an early celebration, because I know what I'm going to do and how I'm going to do it. I am going to take these files and meticulously cull the evidence from them. Fortunately, I have some idea of where to look, or I'd be looking for several dozen needles in a very large haystack. Then I'm going to compile with a fine-toothed comb the evidence I need to make a grand jury case against Johnny.

Then, after a long drink, I start to wonder why. Why am I so concerned about evidence? It's like I told Skinner: there's no way that Johnny's going to get justice in any earthly court of law. If I were really looking for practical justice, I'd walk up behind her in a public space, put a gun to her head, and that's end of the justice question and Johnny. But something in me still shrinks away from the brutal charm of vigilante execution.

It stems from my childhood and the part of me that remains Daddy's little girl. I was raised to believe in justice. I was raised to believe in America and in American justice. I'm a long way from the little girl who had unquestioning faith in the system I live in. I know that very often the system is a sham. But the principles still resonate for me.

So I set my glass down on the coffee table and review the files that tell a story of corruption, betrayal, and horror in the highest levels of government and society. It's not the friendliest bedtime reading I've ever had, but it still beats the hell out of some of the autopsy reports I reviewed during my training in pathology. I try to make some sense of my course of action.

I think I need another glass of wine. But I can't. I just can't make another decision impaired beyond thought. I need to push away all of the nasty, deeply personal, emotional reasons that I want to destroy Johnny. I need to clear a rational, objective space in my head.

That's easier said than done. I don't think that I really want to seek impartial justice against Johnny. Every act Johnny has committed against me has been personal. It's been done deliberately, ruthlessly, and for no other reason than she's working from a whim of hers. Nobody could ever mean more to Johnny than the image she sees in the mirror every morning and the affront of being a toy for that woman-- that goddamned woman-- makes the color rise in my cheeks again.

What am I doing? What am I trying to do, exactly, with my files and my proof and my legalistic justifications? If I do this, no court system will hold me for very long. I doubt that the strength of my evidence or the overwhelming right for revenge is going to be important after Johnny is dead.

I blink. After Johnny is dead. Am I really willing to go that far? My stomach churns a little. It's true that "destroying Johnny Valmont" is a very slippery phrase that could mean anything. But isn't my not-so- hidden resentment all aimed squarely at the purpose of ruining her life in any way I can? That includes dead. And judging from the way my subconscious supplied the word so easily, I think death is the logical conclusion of seeking revenge on Johnny. It's the truth. I want to kill her. I want to put the muzzle of a gun to her head and pull the trigger. And when the blood splatters on my clothes and the body falls to the ground, I'll smile.

No.

I won't.

No.

I won't.

I close my eyes.

No.

It's not worth it. Even if my faith in justice and truth and America and all things good has been shaken, I'm not going to completely sacrifice my morals for Johnny. To kill her would be to lose to her ultimately. I won't kill her.

I open my eyes, and stare at the thick stack of printouts and three zip disks it took for the Gunmen to compile the information about the X- Files. That's why I have this evidence, and this desire to make a case. I believe in preserving whatever's left of my soul and the good in this world. I want there to be good in this world, and there will be a lot more good in a world without Johnny.

I pick up the files, and then set them down again. God dammit! I'm trapped in a circle again. If I do it the right way, Johnny's going to get off scot-free. If I do it the wrong way, Johnny's going to win a moral victory over me. I can't win.

Head resting in hand, I consider the possibility of revenge. I consider justice and fairness and the values I was raised to revere. I think about the world that most people don't know about and how it's bending us all over for another go-round.

Something snaps. I turn on my computer without looking at the files or debating the question of justice or right or ethics that have plagued the entire human race for millennia. I think about what it really comes down to. Johnny Valmont trashed my life and ran off giggling. My partner, who was the person on this earth I cared about more than anything, got in her way and she killed him with as much emotion as she would killing a fly.

I double-click on my ISP.

Why shouldn't I make her hurt? I think I may be the only person on earth she cares about, in her own malevolently twisted way. Why shouldn't I take my files and my dossiers and my rage and my need to get something back and shove them down her throat? If I sit to one side, she-- and all the other forces that have left me voiceless-- will win.

The modem connects. I click on my mail program.

I'm not going to claim that I'm a heroine for what I'm doing. I won't even bother to claim I'm doing the right thing morally. It's a brutal world, and sometimes we have to play the rough politics of morality. Nobody wins, but even a temporary thrill of victory against Johnny would make my day. Hell, it might even make my life.

Compose new mail. To: jmvalmont@www.shh.com.org

No more excuses. No more delays.

_Johnny--_

We need to talk.

That's an understatement if I ever heard one. We need to talk and I need to blow your head off, you manipulative black hole of a human being. I remember that in one of my dossiers, there's mention of a club that Johnny frequents. I move back to the files and flip through them frantically. There we are-- Unicorn. It's a cheesy name, faux-upscale. It suits Johnny very well.

_How does the Unicorn sound? Next Tuesday, eight o'clock, you buy the drinks. Be there._

I think that's enough to nab her. It better be, because I can't write anymore. I send the message and shut down the computer. Then I return to my shamefully neglected drink and the comforts of my couch. I've given myself a week before I have to confront the major figure of all my nightmares, to say nothing of the moral dilemma contained in the entire scheme of revenge. If nothing else, I need a little time to prepare.

I sigh, drain the last remnants of my merlot, and go to bed. It now all depends on Johnny, as usual. I hope she doesn't let me down.

* * *

 

**Johnny:**

Men have their uses. Not many of them, I'll admit, but when they're good at something, they're often superlatively good at it. I chalk it up to their stubbornly one-track minds. I have certain problems achieving virtuoso status because I cannot think of only one thing at once. When I think, twenty different tangents weave their way in and out of my main focus, making it unstable.

It made for a difficult childhood. A friend could be talking to me about what Barbie should do next on her big date with Ken and I was wondering if Barbie and Ken would end up like my mother and her big dates. Then I'd wonder which one of those big dates was my sister's father and why I didn't have a father. Then why my mother went to parties with celebrities but we lived on the stolen food from those parties-- Ken and Barbie went right out the window, and my friends got very impatient.

Pardon the whimsy and the rambling. My brain tends to go to jelly when a beautiful dark-haired man has his hand wrapped around my foot, manipulating the sore muscles and tendons in erotic, arc-like patterns. I have the worst problems with my feet, due to wearing high heels so often. I hate high heels. It took me forever to learn to wear them properly. But this is bliss. This is swelling my feet and stimulating my blood. This is--

"Johnny?" he asks, tapping me on the shoulder. "We're done here."

I nod, weak-limbed and languorous from the exercise. I mentioned my masseuse is happily married, right? I smile stupidly and wave him towards my purse.

"Thank you," I say, feeling as though I would prefer nothing more than a cup of hot tea and the comforts of my bed. But I'm a modern American, and work never quite leaves the back corners of my mind, especially considering my line of work.

"Next week?"

"Of course."

After my massage therapist leaves, I draw my body up slowly and stretch back, back, back, arching my spine and pulling my arms over my head until I could almost touch the floor with my hands. Mmm. I love that sensation. It's probably bad for me, but I do love it.

I pull myself back together from the euphoria of a good massage. I need to get it together, check my email, and make my to-do list for tomorrow. Then it's bedtime with David Letterman's opening monologue, which will put me right to sleep.

Fuck me. I've become the establishment. Did I just think of to-do lists and tomorrow morning and going to bed at eleven-thirty? Am I living from my day planner? Does this mean I'm becoming my mother?

No, I tell myself, strolling down the hallway towards my bedroom. My mother wouldn't be in bed at eleven-thirty and she thinks IKEA is a martial art.

It's still too early for Letterman, I notice. So instead of wasting time, I watch the news while slipping under the covers and turning on my laptop. I listen to the weather, half-asleep already. I really hope I don't have anything important to handle tomorrow. Perhaps no one will have any reports or updates or crises for me and I can enjoy the self- congratulatory perks of my high-tension position. Oscar nominations are coming up.

The news blathers on, superficial and trite to the last word. It's a wonder they even bother with all the controls on journalism these days. Only one incident catches my attention at all and that's because the people involved are particularly idiotic.

"And in San Francisco, a new organization calling itself The Citadel of the Last Days has gained local notoriety," the anchorwoman announces. "The small group has seen astronomical gains in its membership over the past months. Officials fear that the charismatic figurehead of the movement, known only as The Prophet, will use his influence on members to create hysteria in the city. The Citadel's doctrine revolves around a belief in extraterrestrial saviors coming to offer the planet hope and peace--"

Yeah, and the Backstreet Boys are musical geniuses. I snort on principle at people who are looking to outer space for salvation, because it turns out all those hysterical anti-Commie movies from the fifties were right. It's ironic, I really do think. They said aliens were just more American hating motherfuckers with awesome killing powers and they weren't far off. The only problem is that by the time they warned us, it was already too late.

I log onto the Internet and start going through my email half- heartedly. It does look like I'm going to have that light day that I was looking for. That's wonderful. I'm starting to get antsy from so many meetings and double-talking memos. Maybe I can take off at lunch, and go shopping, or take Danielle to the playground, or just go to Central Park and sit on the benches. Or (and this is much more likely) I can get the number of that adorable bleached-blonde waiter at my favorite coffee shop and take him home for the afternoon.

Check, check, check. Tomorrow's going to be a good day--

Wait. One. Minute.

I stare at the most recent message. This message cannot be from who it says it's from because if that message is from who it says it's from, then I think I've just lost my mind. I click on the message frantically, stomach rolling with anxiety and surprise.

We need to talk?

This has got to be some sort of prank, because I know as surely as I know my name that Scully would not write this email message. My heartbeat has taken a tremendous leap from the adrenaline rush. I have tried to put her out of my mind, just another side project taken care of, someone to forget and deny, but she still haunts my dreams, and my furtive moments of regret.

I grab my phone and dial one of my favorite numbers.

"Yeah?" a weary voice asks.

"I need you to run a trace on an email message I received," I say crisply. "ASAP."

"Yes, ma'am. I'll be on that right away. Just send me the proper information, ma'am."

"Of course," I reply, and hang up. Then, after I send the necessary information to the guy, I shiver. There's something wrong about this. Scully or not, there's something distinctly wrong in the air. It reminds me of the worst of my nightmares, the ones I used to have until I had the doctors prescribe me a combo of pills that frightened away my nightmares. Adrenaline is tensing up my system, re-knotting muscles my masseuse eased less than an hour ago.

I can't relax enough to watch television. I stare at the message as my mind starts moving in a million directions at once. Scully wants to talk to me. More likely, Scully wants to blow my head off. Or someone wants to blow my head off and pin the motive on Scully. Where is she, anyway? No one's seen her since she locked the door to her apartment. Is she all right? Panic starts racing through my system and I pick up the phone again.

"Yeah?" asks another weary voice. Fuck, does the entire world go to bed early now?

"Get someone to find out what the hell is going on with Dana Scully and report back to me in ten minutes," I say flatly.

"Ma'am?" the voice says insistently. "We have her on surveillance already and she's in her apartment."

"Are you sure?" I ask, trying not to sound frantic.

"Yes, ma'am," this person informs me, as the nagging beep of call waiting takes its turn to nag me. God, what a night. "Is that all?"

"Yes," I say, hanging up. "Hello?"

"Ma'am, we traced the email. It's from Dana Scully, just like it says," says the first person I called. I wish I could remember his name. He does so much good work for me.

"Thank you," I say tiredly. Then I hang up on the lot of them and stare at the laptop screen. For better or for worse, then, this is a message from Scully. I don't know what to think about that. What does she want? I could give her anything, except what she really wants. Meeting her next Tuesday is a bad idea. I have an instinct about these things, and that instinct's screaming right now.

But even survival and insight can't overwhelm my curiosity and my desire to see Scully again. I want to hear her voice. I want to listen to her, even if she wants to tell me to go to hell over and over again in public. This is the part that's killing me. I can't figure out why Scully wants to see me. I may not get any sleep until I come up with a rational explanation for why. The only thing I have is revenge, but how does meeting me at the Unicorn fit in with a revenge plot?

I look at my nails. They need to be filed, and they could use a buffing, too. I shut down my computer and put it back on my nightstand. Then I pull out my nail file and get to work. I really need to go to sleep, but I can't force myself to stop thinking about Scully. When I close my eyes, she's engraved on my eyelids. When I try to clear my head, she slips around the circles of my mind. I swear I can almost feel her breathing into my ear.

Damn girl, I think to myself, you've still got it bad for that woman. I just hope it doesn't kill me.

* * *

 

**Scully:**

I arrive early to this club that Johnny seems to like so much. A little research with the Gunmen has revealed that twenty percent of this demure splendor belongs solely to her, and God only knows about the dancers, the bouncers, and the hairless, eunuch-like bartenders and maitre d'. I wonder idly if these are washouts from the program, men who didn't fit the profile of soulless killer or bureaucrat and ended up doing dishes and entertaining their empress in these hollow surroundings.

And hollow is definitely the word for this place. It's quintessentially Johnny, at least the Johnny I know. There's a lot of money at the base, a veneer of excellent taste, and a rotten center that infects everything involved. The male strippers seem to be in on the joke. The patrons do not. As I watch the show, with the rich women sweating over the strippers, I feel sad. These women are fluttering over beautiful bodies, and I can't blame them. These men are works of art in muscle and bone.

But on closer examination, it's all show and no substance. The eyes of these men are hopeless, defiantly empty. They know that they're only living statuary, and worst of all, I think they know no matter how beautiful or how sexual they are, no matter how many women pant and cheer them, there's only one woman who matters, and she owns them and doesn't care. I shudder. It's all so hideously empty-- something amusing and distracting and attractive to look at, but nothing true or bright seeps out from these men, or from this very tasteful, very expensive restaurant. It could be a tomb for all the life it projects.

As I wait, nursing my first vodka martini-- I need the olives for nutrition-- the sham doesn't dazzle me at all. It's jarring and cold. The air conditioner is on at full blast, even though it's perhaps fifty degrees outside. The practical uses of that are obvious, as I stare at more erect male nipples than I've ever seen before in my life. The music is too polite for a vulgar place like this. Nina Simone-- Nina Simone!-- is playing. She's one of my favorites. Johnny knows that, damn her, and this is no coincidence.

"Love me or leave me and let me be lonely-- you won't believe me but I love you only-- I'd rather be lonely than happy with somebody else--"

Maybe if this were a piano bar for white-collar yuppies instead of a strip joint for bored rich women, the music would be calming. But it's out of place with the naked man doused in baby oil and covered in glitter, the woman old enough to be my mother demurely offering him a dollar bill, and this hairless man offering to get me another vodka martini. It sets my nerves on edge like the bangles on a cheap bracelet, when they're already due to be destroyed from my meeting with Johnny.

"Yeah," I tell the bartender nervously. "Keep 'em coming. Has Ms. Valmont arrived yet? I'm waiting for her."

He looks at me with wide, surprised eyes, and backs away slightly. Then he shakes his head, and proceeds to get me another drink. I swill down the last bitter tastes of vodka, and my eyes survey the crowded room yet again. It's eight-o-six. When is Ms. Johnny Valmont planning to make her appearance? Sometime after the second coming, perhaps?

"Drinking alone is very bad for you," a voice that's made of equal parts whiskey, honey, and poison tells me. I snap my head around like a latex glove and there she is, looking as absolutely beautiful and dangerous as ever. "It's the sign of an alcoholic. And, despite what you might have heard, alcoholism is not romantic."

She leans in close, and I can smell her perfume. She's switched from Chanel to something stronger, spicier, almost masculine. I can hear that ragged breathing pattern of hers. I look into her eyes-- those horrible, feline eyes, jade-green eyes, gem-green, like glass. Her lips crease in a rich, ironic grin, the color of fine red wine.

My breath catches in my throat and dares not leak out. I'm fascinated, immediately drawn into this woman's aura and her easy erotic grace. Her eyes are fastened, absolutely fastened on my breasts, and she places one leather-gloved hand on my shoulder, drawing closer. The grin becomes almost shark-like, stretched across her face like a crude slash of paint.

"Dana," she purrs, the whiskey and honey mixing and tearing into me like broken glass. "If you have any half-intoxicated notion of killing me tonight, you'd better drop it. They may not look like it, but the waiters could restrain you in seconds. So if a bloody revenge is on tonight's agenda, I would just let-- it-- slide--"

And her gloved hand drifts down my sleeve, and she withdraws, narrow- eyed, smiling pleasantly. I shudder. I shouldn't have come tonight. I shouldn't have ever gotten near Johnny ever again. I should just get away now, and forget this ever happened.

But that would be just what she wants, right? My voice threatens her when it's not saying what she wants to hear. I challenge her because she wants me badly, so badly that she forgets all of her cultured, civilized manners and becomes someone primal and irrational. I will not lose my nerve and leave.

Instead of fading away, I slide off my leather barstool, martini in hand. I return that smooth, wicked smile which years of insincere simpering has left on Johnny's face. I breeze by her, allowing the slightest caress of material on material. Then I look back over my shoulder.

"Johnny, baby," I say in a voice that is satin and scotch. "You don't know what I have on tonight's agenda. So why don't we sit down and discuss a little business?"

Her smile fades a little, and the conniving look that's truly Johnny seeps back in her eyes. She doesn't know what to make of this. I know this woman all too well. It unnerves her not to know what's really going on. I have the advantage. She follows behind, almost obediently, as we take a seat at the best table in the restaurant.

"Business," she says as she sits down, easing off her gloves and leaving them, limp, on the table. "That's a word that can mean any number of things. Why don't you bring me up to speed with exactly what you want?"

I wave my hand in my air. "But Johnny, you're so good at telling me what I want," I say, sliding into the booth across from her. "Can't you guess what I'm after tonight?"

"You're drunk," she says, almost fondly.

"Not on two vodka martinis," I say, slipping my foot up her leg slightly. The effect is not quite what it would be if I were barefoot, but her eyes still widen. "I've built up a tolerance recently."

Her eyes drop, surveying the outfit and the strategic cleavage. "And you used to be such a nice girl," she says in a low, half-mocking tone. "You still haven't told me why you're here, Scully."

I thank God my boots are soft leather as I slip my foot a little further up her leg. "And why should I tell you? I want you to guess," I say in dark, whiskey tones, leaning over the table and giving a much better cleavage shot. It's vulgar, but so is she. She possesses such a profane beauty, sliding one leg a little further away from the other as I keep playing footsie with her.

"I could guess, but I don't think that I'm right," she says, a smile glittering moistly on her lips. "But if I didn't know better, I'd say that was your foot on my leg."

Keep smiling, Johnny, you ain't seen nothing yet. I slide my foot up to thigh level, and her hand is immediately there. Keep smiling, because you're going to get quite a show. There may even be fireworks in the end.

"Why couldn't you be right?" I inquire lazily, taking a last swig of martini.

"Because," she says, moving her fingers up towards the top of my boot. "It would be impossible."

"Impossible things are happening every day," I reply, smirking in a good imitation of her own perpetually amused expression. Oh, do keep smiling, Johnny. Breathe a little harder.

Her lips part in an "ah" of surprise, and those large, expressive jade eyes light up. I lean a little further over the table, keeping my cool admirably.

"Would you like to hear something impossible?" I whisper.

She breathes in with a soft rush of air. The moment is frozen, sparkling around us in crystalline motion. The entire restaurant could be staring at us and I wouldn't know it. Right now, there are only the two of us, surrounding by cold, pale light that glitters like diamonds and silver, the smell of spice and alcohol, and the muted sounds of rock and roll in the background.

"Yes," she whispers back, her entire soul caught in a gasp of breath. I take her outstretched hand in mine, and stroke it lightly with one finger.

"Johnny, darling--"

"Yes?"

"I was wondering--"

"What?"

"Do you happen to have any job openings?"

* * *

 

**Johnny:**

Job openings?

Job openings!

JOB OPENINGS?!?!?

What the cluster fucking hell was that? Scully just had her foot slowly sliding up my thigh, her hand stroking mine suggestively, adjusting her cleavage more often than Pamela Anderson, and I got asked for a job?

Let's also not forget also that this is not your garden-variety Scully that I see before me. She looks downright smoldering tonight, though she could stand to gain a little weight. I worry that the drinking has done a serious number on her. Little things like her shouldn't be able to down martinis without feeling it.

But back to the point. I think I'm justified in being absolutely stunned. Nobody except for Hollywood producers and the occasional celebrity gets asked for a job like that. I wave at the waiter, trying to communicate that I need a drink of water badly. I think he gets the point, because he hurries away towards the bar tout de suite. Scully sits there and stares at me, smiling at me like the cat that swallowed the canary.

"Johnny?" she asks, eyes wide, feigning a lilt in her voice. "What do you say?"

"You wait," I say, pointing at her severely. "I need a few moments to digest this."

"All right," she replies. "Take as long as you need."

The waiter returns with a tall glass of ice water, and I take it gratefully. I am in serious trouble here. Sitting before me in sartorial splendor is the love of my life and she's smugly requesting another cocktail while I try to remember which way is up and calm down my libido. She asked me for a job, not a sweaty night of sex and I have to think in that mindset. Mixing business and pleasure is a bad idea, especially in my line of work and especially with this woman.

God damn, what a trick that was! In my better days, I would have pulled the same thing on a potential employer, but I think it's infinitely better to give than receive in this situation. My gut instinct is to tell her no. There are too many strikes against her. She's mentally unstable, a borderline alcoholic, extremely stubborn and inflexible in her thinking, and extremely suspicious in her desire to join my organization. It's good management to tell this applicant to keep walking.

Nonetheless, I think I might have underestimated my girl Scully here. She knew very well she couldn't walk up to me in a crowded restaurant and blow me away. So why not try to get me using her brains, not her gun?

"Why do you want to work for me? I thought your whole life was dedicated to bringing down my organization," I reply, putting the water glass down delicately.

"Maybe if my whole life hadn't been destroyed a few weeks ago, you'd still be right," Scully replies crisply. "But I'm alone, and I've quit the FBI. The work you do is my life-- perhaps in a different way than it is yours, but it's still at the center of who I am."

She has a point. And I could always use a medical doctor who's seen the weird and the wild and not flinched. But my main concern is the possibility of betrayal. For what I've done to Scully, she has the right to want me dead. I know she must be out for my blood. I would be. Knowing that, I cannot establish trust with her and in my business, trust is essential.

"Let's say that's true," I say slowly, taking in her face carefully. "I cannot trust you. And that's why I can't hire you."

"You?" she asks, starting to laugh. "Can't trust me? You must be joking."

"Scully," I reply, feeling strangely older than her and full of cynical wisdom, starting with the axiom that mentions never mixing the office and the bedroom. "If I were to drop dead tomorrow, you would be the prime suspect."

"Me?" she asks, taking a long drink. "You have a lot of enemies, Johnny. And I'm a good, upstanding American citizen."

I sneer at her sanctimonious line of tripe. "Very true, Scully. But you also have personal reasons-- what the cops call motive-- for wanting me dead," I insist. "When you're a bitter ex-Fed with a vendetta to settle and an itchy trigger finger, it doesn't matter so much that other people want me dead. You want me dead more."

She smiles at this revelation, and her eyelids flutter downwards. Scully looks so sultry, dripping a lazy, venomous sex appeal with her outfit and her posture and even her tone of voice. I would like nothing better than to adjourn this impromptu interview and continue a different sort of discussion over wine and massage oil, but business is business.

"I suppose that might put a damper in our working relationship," Scully says with the same tone of voice as she would discussing the weather.

"It's possible," I reply, unable to keep sarcasm out of my voice. "Maybe even likely."

"You have a point," she says lazily, slipping her hand into her purse and pulling out a pack of cigarettes. She lights one, taking a long drag and closing her eyes for a moment as she exhales. "I have good reason to despise you. And I do."

"That's a fatal flaw in an organization like mine," I reply harshly. "As much as I think you'd be a good assistant, you're too dangerous. I can't be looking over my shoulder twenty-four hours a day for a disgruntled employee. I have enough enemies as it is."

And that's that. I know I should go, and I even slide out of the booth slightly before she grabs my hand roughly. I stare at her, surprised.

"You owe me, Johnny," she says clearly. Her eyes are narrowed towards me, and she has forgotten all about her cigarette. "I don't care if you think you can trust me or not. I deserve something from you for all the hell you've put me through."

I pull my hand away and shrug. It may hurt, but this is what I expected when I came here. I knew that the footsie and the cooing were too good to be true. She hates me and I have to forget her or all hell will break loose.

Scully stares at me with the warmth of my glass of water and taps her fingers on the hard marble of the tabletop. I tilt my head back and start counting to ten and considering my options. I could walk out right now. That's what I should do. I should say goodbye, get in a cab, go home, and fuck myself until I can't see straight. Scully is no threat to me if I keep her away from me. If I allow myself to get closer, I'll regret it.

But I can't. You see, not only fools fall in love, but smart, crafty women who know all the traps and lies of love can discover that no matter how smart you are, no one's immune from the plague. I look at her, and I just keep thinking that I'm not going to make the worst mistake in my life and let my heart dominate my head.

Get up, I think to myself. Johnny, get the hell up. She'll kill you or you'll kill her if you consider this any further. Scully has no business working for the Syndicate. Your grandfather would shit a brick. Mulder would have had apoplexy. Smoking Man, Spender-- hell, Alex would have laughed in your face. You can't do this.

"I don't owe you anything," I growl. "Get out of my sight."

"I want this job, Johnny," she replies, not budging an inch. "You're going to give it to me."

"Get out or I'll call the bouncers."

"Do it, then," she says. "I don't have anything to live for. Why don't you and your bouncers take me back and kill me in the alley? Why don't you do it right now? Shoot me in the head, Johnny. Finish what you've started. You broke my heart, and then you took the remains and ate them for dinner. You took my life and did the same thing. Why not kill me?"

She takes her martini then and breaks it on the marble tabletop. It shatters into pieces; sharp, terrible shards of glass. Then she takes one of them and pulls back her sleeve, exposing the pale skin of her wrist and the fainter blue of the veins beneath. With only a little pause, she puts the point of the glass against the skin and starts to pull. Blood seeps out, bright red against the milky translucence of her skin.

"Scully!" I hiss. "Stop it."

"No."

"Stop it. I mean it."

She pulls harder, and there is suddenly a trickle slipping down her arm, staining the skin. I stare open-mouthed at Scully as she smiles, a smug superior smile that tells me if I throw her out on the street, she'll just walk to my apartment and try again until she's dead or hired.

"Scully!"

"Johnny!" she mimics grotesquely.

"Don't," I say. "I'll hire you. Just please stop."

She lets go of the piece of glass and is immediately digging in her purse, finding a handkerchief, and wrapping the wound. I want to throw up and my head is spinning. God damn her. She knows too well how much she means to me. I will keep her alive against my better judgement. All she has to do to get what she wants is to threaten to kill herself and I'm fucked.

"That wasn't so hard, was it?" she asks, retaining her cool. "Should I come home with you tonight?"

"I don't host my employees," I reply, fighting back as hard as I can. "I'll give you my card. You can show up tomorrow at eight am like anyone who works for me. And don't expect any favors or privileges just because you and I have a past."

She stands up and glares at me. "I wouldn't want them," she tells me, putting on her coat and taking her purse. "Good evening, Johnny. I won't say it hasn't been fun."

"What-the-fuck-ever," I reply, staring at the jagged mess on the table.

"Tomorrow morning, then," she says, spinning on her heel and striding away.

"Yeah," I mutter, watching her leave. "Tomorrow morning."

* * *

 

**Spender:**

I hate alleys. They smell like piss and dead rats and stagnant water and any number of things that turn my stomach. But my new employers-- the ones who have made sure I have more than one outfit, a television, and a reason to wake up mornings-- have requested politely that I watch Johnny Valmont and her guest tonight.

Her guest. God damn, I was expecting a senator or the president or one of the Joint Chiefs with the emphasis the orders put on watching the guest. Instead, it was just Scully, looking hot as hell but edgy as she strolled on into the club. I understood exactly what she felt like. When Johnny's got her eye on you, the world seems out to get you.

Johnny herself arrived ten minutes later, and she was nervous, too. I didn't get that one bit. How could the Queen of the Universe be nervous to see Scully? What does Johnny have to fear? But she was extremely jumpy, fiddling with her gloves, twitching visibly before she walked into the club. I don't know about those two. They're trapped in their own set of mind games so delicate and intricate if anyone else interfered, they'd both break into tiny little glass pieces.

But enough reverie. I'm here to watch and that's what I'm doing. I don't think my employers will be pleased I skulked about in the alley, but neither Johnny nor Scully is fond of me and they might just put aside their hatred of each other to finally do me in. In any case, I wouldn't hear anything in there I won't discover out here.

Scully flies out of the restaurant with her blouse disheveled and boots clacking. It's impossible to tell from a distance, but she has something tied around her wrist. It looks stained, and my eyes widen, remembering something. One of my father's ex-flunkies told me that Johnny was into blood sports. Alex Krycek was sporting more tracks than a heroin junkie just because of her, they said. She got off on it and got you off on it more and more until you were as bad as she was. They always looked so nervous when they discussed this subject, as if she was sitting around the corner, waiting to hex you for daring to mention her name.

And now Scully is hailing a cab, looking as if the devil's behind her. I get closer, trying to hear where she's going. I don't catch it, but I get a good look at her, and the cloth around her wrist. She's been cut deep. I hope she's going to a hospital. I hope she's walking out of Johnny's life for good, but somehow I doubt it.

Ten minutes later, the devil herself strides out of the club and leans against the wall next to the alley. It's a stroke of luck on a night that's been hearsay, speculation, and huge fucking New York rats. I sit in a half-crouch, barely daring to breathe as I listen for any crumb of information Johnny's willing to share.

For a while she just stands there, gasping slightly, and then she starts to laugh, a high-pitched hysterical laugh that sways and gulps drunkenly. I start to get nervous, because that laugh is cracked. Goddamn witch's cackle is what it sounds like, echoing in the dark, damp alley and getting on my nerves.

Finally, after the air seems to be heavy with her laughter, she pats herself down to find her cell phone. I take another shallow breath.

"Bethany," she says into the phone after a minute. "Yeah, it's me. Yeah, yeah, I know, I don't pay you enough, don't I know it-- Cuz you never let me forget it, that's why, wiseass, now shut up and listen."

Bethany. I squeeze my eyes shut. That's the nanny, the movie queen. The kid's first words are going to be "I'm ready for my close-up" if half of what the reports say about Bethany are true. She's apparently keeping three Blockbusters in the black by herself, and ordering anything she can't find there.

"I'm telling you to call Jacinda, dammit! I don't care what I do or don't pay you for, Bethany. You call her up and tell her to be ready for Dana Scully at eight tomorrow morning-- yeah, you heard me-- no, she's not. No! No kidding I sound pissed off, I got enough bitches riding me to be an inner-city pimp and I don't need to hear my domestic help tell me what she will or won't do. Call Jacinda, do you understand me?"

There's a pause. Then Johnny's voice drops from the ringing hysterics of five minutes ago and back to something lower, velvety, but still angry.

"I'm sorry. I know it's not you-- I know-- it was weird-- no, I can't tell you, it's not your business-- yes, she'll be around again-- not that way. What, do you need to get laid or something? Yeah, I'm gonna be home soon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How was she tonight? Good. Good. Yeah, that's wonderful. Soon. See you soon."

She ends the call. Then she stares up at the cloudy Manhattan sky and lets out a scream of frustration. I'm still caught in a crouch, hoping to God nothing's crawled on me while I was still. She spins, doing that graceful pirouette on her heels that has always been a Johnny Valmont trademark move, and hails herself a cab.

That's when I stand up and leave the alley, trying to make sense of fragments and tiny bits of evidence. My employers couldn't find out if Scully or Johnny had called this little get-together. I think it was Scully, who was intending to go in there and lay down the law, as far as I can tell. It makes sense. Scully has the motive, means, and will to commit murder. She was probably going to lure Johnny out to the alley with her feminine wiles and then empty out a cartridge into her chest.

But Johnny's smarter than that. She knows that Scully's out for blood and she's going to want to keep the homicidal maniac close to her to prevent any unfortunate incidents. So after explaining to Scully that there was going to be no killing, I'm sure that Johnny finished by making Scully an offer she couldn't refuse. It all makes perfect sense to me.

The blood is problematic. Why did Johnny cut her in public? And why did they go home in separate cabs? The subtleties between those two are lost on me. All I know is that I have some noteworthy information to pass on to my employers. I walk across the busy street to the nearest pay phone. Cell phones are just too unsafe for this sort of information.

"Hello," a calm, inhuman voice answers when I dial. "Who is this?"

"Spender, sir. I have some information."

"We have been waiting for your report," the man answers. "Share your information, Mr. Spender."

"I observed Ms. Valmont and her guest walking into the club you directed me to this evening. Both seemed extremely agitated at the prospect of reunion, but from the postures of both, and the logic behind the situation, I currently assume Ms. Valmont's guest called this meeting."

"A logical position."

"Anyhow, I chose not to follow them into the club because I'm well known to both parties and I don't think I would have learned any useful information that way. So I waited outside in the alley."

"Did you learn anything worthwhile in that position?"

I grimace. That's their way of telling me to show them the money. I hope that my intelligence works in my favor, because these are not the sort of guys handle disappointment well.

"I discovered that Ms. Valmont is going to be employing Scully starting tomorrow," I say. "I don't know if they're resuming their romantic relationship, but the implication was they'd be working very closely together."

There's a pause. "Thank you, Mr. Spender. You've helped us immeasurably tonight."

"I have?"

"Your information, when added to ours, has provided us with an answer to which course of action we'll take when dealing with Ms. Valmont," the voice on the other end tells me emotionlessly.

"Which is?" I ask.

He tells me. As I discover what these men and not-men have planned, and what my part is to be in the entire game, my fingers tighten around the receiver, and I can only make noncommittal murmurs from my throat. My eyes feel frozen wide open and my blood is sinking into my sneakers from fear. I want to scream. I want to hang up and run away as far as I can, but I can't. This is the world I'm enmeshed in, and there's no possibility of escape. If I'm lucky, I'll survive as something resembling myself. But even that faint hope is keeping me frozen in place, listening as the plan is explained to me.

"Are you ready for it, Mr. Spender?" the toneless voice on the other end of the line asks me.

I stare at the city of New York. It's never looked so beautiful and it's never looked so terrible. But I look at it as long as I can, imprinting it on my memory before I answer.

"Of course I am, sir," I reply, faux cheerful. "What should I do next?"

And then I realize it's such a **little** thing, finally selling your soul. Because when you finally get there, there's nothing really worth selling anyway.


	2. Book Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I found the secrets, I found gold  
> I find you out before you grow old  
> (I find you out before you grow old--)
> 
> I'm reaching the very edge, you know  
> I'm reaching the very edge--  
> I'm going to the other side this time  
> I'm reaching the very edge--
> 
> You're still breathing, but you don't know why  
> Life's a bit and sometimes you die  
> You're still breathing-- but you just can't tell  
> Don't hold your breath,  
> but the pretty things are going to hell
> 
> The pretty things are going to hell--  
> They wore it out but they wore it well--
> 
> You're still breathing but you don't know why  
> You're still breathing but you just can't tell  
> Don't hold your breath but the pretty things are going to hell--" David Bowie

**Spender:**

I have a gun in my hand and it's warm, warm like a lover's kiss, like blood covering your skin, like the dinner the wife is supposed to make for you in the plastic-fantastic America sold to us in our commercial mythology.

This particular gun is warm because I just fired it and put a bullet into someone's heart. In fact, I fired it into one very special someone on a day when the Mall is crawling with people from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial. That bullet could have been meant for anyone, they'll say, especially on a day like today. But that's bullshit. The bullet had her name on it since before I loaded it into the gun. It was a love-letter sent straight to her heart.

I didn't want to do this. I was told I wanted to. Everyone who wanted her dead told me that this would be the high point of my life, better than the best sex I ever had. Maybe if I were one of those limp-dick types who've been working for the alien puppetmasters for thirty years, it would have been. Me, I don't know so much about that. I don't know so much, period. But pulling that trigger didn't feel anything like sex. It felt like a reflex, an involuntary sneeze. Tug the trigger, the gun warms up, the woman falls down, and that's it. Sex had nothing to do with it.

I killed her, I think, for the thrill of betrayal and revenge. I thought I was going to be a villain. Judas Iscariot, Brutus, and all by pulling that trigger. That was exciting for me. I was looking forward to having that guilt nestled up deep in my heart, a badge of dishonor I could enjoy for the rest of my life.

Instead I don't think my heart is even beating. I'm trapped inside my own head, trying to peer out at a world that's teetering on the edge of annihilation right here and right now. There's meltdown in the skies. And I don't give a god damn.

Or maybe not. Maybe I do care, but I'm afraid to. I told those sons of bitches I'd do whatever they wanted months ago back in New York, back when things seemed surreal. I was glad to have a place to sleep and food to eat. I was so empty. I could do anything. I made myself hard, like my father, like my father's associates, like the woman's who's lying dead on the ground. But underneath, I think I've been screaming the whole time. See, not only is the sky is falling, but the end is coming, the fat lady is singing, and you don't have time to cash in your tickets. To top it all off, with one shot I've killed the devil and set the rest of Hell loose on us.

That was a bad idea. How do you shoot the devil in the back? What if you miss? Or what if it doesn't matter if you miss or not? She's as dead as disco, laying there on the ground not more than twenty feet from me. There's got to be fifty people that saw me do it. I don't care. I killed her because I had orders. And not from those slick-ass smarmy bastards that think they ordered me to do it. God up high must have wanted me to kill her. How else could a half-rate, nobody dipshit like me do her in not once, but twice? There's something else at work here-- something I'm not fit to mess with or question. So I can't care, can't fight. I simply let it move me like the tide.

Lucky me, right? Fuck and fuck again. There's something sick and desperate about completely turning yourself over to fate the way I have. I don't think it's human to believe in the inevitable. That's God's fault, too. In any world where miracles happen, people aren't going to just let themselves wait for the slaughter like cows. They'll always hope, and scheme, and plot, even when things are genuinely inevitable, because there's always a chance.

I killed her. It was fate. But it was so hollow it doesn't matter. It echoes in my ears and across my mind but doesn't leave any impressions. Instead it rattles, leaving ghosts of memories, that wail and almost exist, but nothing palpable, nothing memorable. It seems just out of reach. And I am still standing here, gun in hand, trying to muster up a good reason to run away from the scene of the crime. I mean, what's the fucking point? I'm going to be found no matter what I do, so why run?

Someone who finally cares-- about anything-- finds the dead woman lying there and drops to her knees in surprise. I look at this woman-- the living one-- closely.

I know her.

That is to say, I knew her, back when I cared about who I was, and when I dreamt I could mean something. She looks at the body sprawled on the ground, staining the dirt with blood, examining it. I keep watching her, and somewhere in the back of my mind I wonder how long this is really taking. I should be in the back of a squad car already, handcuffs chafing my wrists, mutely waiting for the inevitable.

After this woman I once knew finishes touching the body of our greatest enemy, she looks up and sees me standing there, complete with smoking gun and guilty expression. Our eyes meet, and time, which has already been moving too slowly to begin with, freezes solid. There are only the two of us among hundreds of thousands. I don't know what to do. I never knew what to do. I just did it.

We look at each other, and the world changes.

She raises a finger to her lips and shakes her head. Don't tell, she's telling me, don't ever tell. I shake my head, confused and paralyzed. Then I nod agreement. She smiles then, a grim smile, and we've made a pact that'll outlast time. She tilts her head at me.

Run, Jeffrey, she mouths at me. Run.

Maybe she said it. I don't know. But she wants me to run, that I do know. I blink. Then time starts moving again, speeding up like someone suddenly hit a button on the cosmic remote control, and the universe resumes its normal movement. I'm surrounded by people who are staring at me in horror. The dead woman is still there, and she's definitely dead. I'm holding the gun.

I drop the gun.

She looks at me one last time with eyes as emotionless as my own. I hold my breath and count to ten.

I look at the corpse. I remember who I've killed. Oh-- God. Oh. God.

She-- the one who'll live-- turns away. I understand what that means. It's time to get the hell out of here for good.

I run.

I don't stop running.

I never stop running.

* * *

 

**Scully:**

I hate New York City. I will never set foot in this godforsaken town again once I get revenge on Johnny, so help me God.

And I will get revenge on her. I haven't gotten any as yet, but that doesn't mean it's not on my mind all the time. It's a morbid obsession of mine-- imagining just how Johnny will look when she realizes she's the one that's fucked, and how I won't feel the least bit guilty when her life comes crashing down around her ears.

Still, I'm at the worst part of getting revenge-- biding my time. I don't wait well at all, and working here, I've gotten paranoid that I'm losing my resolve. I couldn't imagine giving up while I was enmeshed here, in the lab and the Project. I don't believe in many fates worse than death, but that would be one of them.

I take a deep breath in the midst of my musing and I see the scar on my wrist. It makes me ashamed to see it, because I remember that night when I forced Johnny to hire me. The doctor who looked it over later that evening said I was lucky I hadn't severed a nerve. We both neglected to mention it was luckier I hadn't bled to death on the tablecloth, or that I needed to stop drinking. The cut was an accident, after all. That's the official report.

The official report, like most of them, is full of shit.

What was I thinking that night? I don't know if I was begging Johnny to hire me or kill me or fuck me in front of the world and those assorted bouncers, flunkies and customers. I know that she wanted to do it. It absolutely killed her to push that overwhelming desire of hers for me back, but she did.

I didn't expect her to be so cold. I thought that she would be so glad to feel my body on hers that she'd be trapped, and by the time she came to her senses, it would be too late. Maybe I just hoped that. I didn't want to be here, really, but I had to get that wedge into her life, making my presence there undeniable and painful. I did whatever I could to get here, and now I have to deal with the consequences.

One thing I've discovered working with Johnny Valmont is that the woman is dedicated to this. It's her life, her focus, her work, and she will repress everything for the good of the business. I should have guessed that. Johnny and Mulder shared any number of surprisingly laudable traits-- but it's a surprise all the same. It used to be that whenever Johnny and I were in the same room, sex was in the air, but now I could be any one of her efficient, cold employees who are quietly plotting out Armageddon when I pass her in the halls. That's what the work means to her.

"Doctor Scully," one of the lab assistants calls from across the bay. "I think we have something new in this sample."

I feel dirty and guilty being here. Mulder would have cut off a finger for five minutes in this lab. Now I spend forty to sixty hours a week here with the assistants, other scientists, and any number of people who don't remind me at all of the sneering Syndicate members we ran across working on the X-Files.

These people are everyday people, with homes and families and dogs. The assistant with the "something new" is a Yankees fan, like Mulder was. I want to give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they are trying to save the world. They could be discovering yet another grotesque beauty of science. Or perhaps they're just working a job to get by. No one here rubs their hands together with glee, waiting for the end of the world to come. Nobody's an overt villain.

Humanity is both the most terrible and most unexpected thing about this job. I don't know what I was expecting. Perhaps I thought the only people who could work under Johnny were the Kryceks and the Spenders and any number of the weak and evil people of this world. But the truth is deeply nuanced, as is this entire organization. I don't know if it was the same under the old men, but the Syndicate is as dedicated to saving humanity as it is to wiping out humanity. The entire place is a jigsaw puzzle with no solution, crawling with extraterrestrials and the most evil men and women I know. But the people I've been working aren't monsters. I could have been one of them, I think.

Except none of these people, will ever know what it's like to be flown into the white light, I think to myself as I peer through the microscope. None of them will tense up and sometimes throw up after a nosebleed, shivering at the possible meanings. None of them will wonder if they should leave flowers at the grave of their almost-maybe- daughter. Maybe they will. But only if they don't keep pretending that their research aided and abetted in doing this. Only if they can't keep up the facade, that they're just doing a job.

To maintain a lie, you have to believe it, and if I believe this lie, I'm betraying myself. It's a lesson I have to learn. Most people aren't evil. They don't want to hurt people, or believe they're hurting people. But it's so easy to believe it's not your fault because you didn't want to hurt others. You were just following orders. You're not God. You can't change things. This is the rationale that kills, not the evil ideas that the masterminds come up with. Without the silent consent of good people, evil can't get anywhere.

"Doctor Scully," the young man insists. "What do you think?"

"It's a new mutation," I say, looking up at him. He rolls his eyes, to indicate that of course it's a new mutation, does he look like an idiot? "What series is this from? Have you tried repeating the experiment yet? I agree this is an interesting test, but how will it hold up?"

His sneer fades almost immediately, and he nods seriously. "It's from series 1015.2. I haven't tried replicating this yet-- it was just so sudden and so apparent I got excited."

"Of course," I reply. "Call me back when you've got more information, because I may be your supervisor, but all I can tell you is that it's a new mutation. You're going to have to fill in the details."

With that, I walk back to my own station, where one of the smirky, obnoxious messengers that fester around here waits with a priority package.

"Yes?" I ask.

"This is for you. Sign please."

I take the message and sign without any preamble. The messenger gives me a superior look and walks off. It's always so pleasant to get a private message in this organization. People behave as if they were changing the fate of the world by delivering a memo.

I open the message. It's a sheet of paper with a few lines scrawled on it. I scan it quickly.

_Dr. Scully: You and your research need to be at a meeting in my office the Tuesday of next week at 10:00 AM sharp. Please be prepared for a lot of questions, and it would be beneficial to all sides if you had something new and informative to share with fellow members of the Syndicate._

J.M. Valmont

Apparently that couldn't have been emailed. I don't understand this woman at times. Perhaps I get to Johnny still, so that she must add a personal touch, a sign of the infection she can't purge, the mania that clings to her memory like black oil.

I sit down at my station and stare at the memo. It's printed, and her lettering is narrow, straight, and remarkably legible. Johnny could letter for comic books. It's thin, brisk, without any of the sensuality I know is boiling beneath the surface. Except in the signature. That's more commanding, the J swirling back in two full curves, the M slanted and swirling. J.M. Valmont. Johnny M. Valmont. What does the M stand for? If I ever knew, I don't remember. Marilyn? Mary? Mona? Minnie? Meredith? What's the right middle name for a Johnny Valmont?

"Dr. Scully," the young assistant calls. I jump. "I'm sorry. I--"

"It's okay," I reply. "I was a million miles away. What is it?"

"It's the sample, Dr. Scully. I replicated the test and-- well, you'd better see what happens. I think we've found a breakthrough for the new level of vaccine," he says, smiling brightly.

Fantastic. Wonderful. The world could be saved, and I just keep wondering-- Molly? Millicent? Maureen? And at least one thing's for certain-- I'll have something new to tell Johnny Tuesday before I do something to let her know I am not going to roll over and be assimilated.

* * *

 

**Spender:**

I spend my third night in Palm Springs at a gay disco trying to be invisible. I hate this city. The desert's a fucking pit, but I guess it appeals to some people. Me, I can't wrap my brain around the idea that anyone likes the temperature to go up and down forty degrees in a day. Daytimes I bake here, scorched by the sun, and blinded by the sand and nudity. Then at night, just when I've settled down by the bar for my second drink, I realize I need a fucking sweater because I'm shivering.

Life's a bitch, and then there's the part where I have an errand to run for my employers.

I down my gimlet in one gulp and scan the bar for her-- and only her. I get temporarily distracted from my search by the music. Some asshole is on a real Village People kick tonight. This is the sixth time I've heard Macho Man blast across the speakers, and I'm surprised nobody hasn't told the asshole to knock it off. The Village People are strictly kitsch, good for a laugh. But if he wants burlesque, there are plenty of other places for it. This is a goddamn disco.

If she'd just liked golf, I could be on my next job by now. Or tennis, tennis would have done the trick. It wouldn't have been hard to get her alone and then move the fuck on. But this lady-- this goddamn dame-- she's no conventional type, oh no, not her. I watched her room the whole first day in Palm Springs. She was dead to the motherfucking world from before nine, when I got there, until three in the afternoon, when room service trotted up to her bungalow with a tray of something. And it was six before the lady herself emerged, wearing a bright purple robe, movie-star sunglasses, and silver high-heeled sandals, to go take her "morning" swim. I followed her to the hotel pool, where she disrobed and revealed she enjoyed the resort's clothing-optional policy. Then, without a care in the world, she started doing laps.

She's not a bad looking woman, either, even though she's a little older-- forty-five or fifty. Maybe older, I don't know. She doesn't look any older than fifty and she's still attractive. Her dark hair is kept short and stylish, and she has these shining hazel eyes. Plus, she's got an excellent California tan, and a cut body to match it. Back in her day, she must have been a sex goddess. That much is evident as she glides through the crowds of gay men who all blow kisses at her and she grins at them like a tolerant big sister, puckering up in eternal good humor, smiling and laughing.

After the laps the first day, she pulled on the robe and started ordering tequila sunrises at the bar, knocking them back like there was no tomorrow. People stopped by to talk to her, and they'd be standing there for a while, listening to her animated chatter, watching the hypnotic way her cleavage shifted under that wet satin robe.

Diana Fowley, who I never liked, really could have learned something from this woman.

After a while, it became painfully obvious I wasn't going to finish my errand that day, so I found some hotel staff and started chatting them up, asking about the nice lady at the bar. Most of the staff doesn't speak English, but I finally found someone who was listening, handed him a twenty, and got a lot of gossip. Senora was an old friend here, from way back, always plenty of money, plenty of men, lots of alcohol. A social lady, very friendly, very pleasant. There were only good things to hear about Senora and her ways, and all of her hangouts, including this particular disco.

I like her, which is a pity. I like her because she screams life, the simple sort of living where it doesn't matter a fuck if she's up at dawn or midnight, if she cruises gay discos or retirement cotillions, because this woman is in it for the experience. I don't know, some people get through life unscarred, and even when you should hate them, you don't, because they're just too alive and too buoyant to hate. Still. A job is a job.

The second day, I didn't even bother staking out the placing until after two. This time, she pops out wearing a sundress that would make Marilyn Monroe envious and cheerfully greets a tall blonde surfer boy. The guy couldn't have been more than twenty-five, and they disappeared into her room for three hours. Then they go out to a crowded restaurant and hit fifty clubs before I lose track again, and start swearing. My employers said to keep a low profile, and I'm using this to stall. If I keep stalling, they're going to be furious. And if they get furious, I get dead.

I swore to myself today was the day. I have more work to do after this, and I'll never get anywhere if I let myself go to pot in the decadent dry heat of Palm Springs. I want out of here, and I want out of here as soon as I can finish my job.

I order another gimlet and start draining it slowly. The music changes to Donna Summer, and the disco ball starts shedding its shattered, pathetically festive light over the floor as people start getting down to the queen of disco. The occasional queen or poseur tries to slink like Donna Summer, earning sneers from the butch and leather-clad types on the floor, but I notice almost everyone's dancing, including her. She has flair. She has four or five people dancing with her, even as her eyes start sweeping the room and she catches me looking at her.

She smiles, and a wicked glint sparkles in her eye. She knows I'm not gay-- and she's got good instincts, I'll give her that. I try to smile back. I try to give her the come-hither look, but I'm afraid. I'm afraid of what I'm going to do. I'm afraid I won't be able to do it, that deep down, I'm nothing more than a coward.

But I smile again, cocking my head slightly and looking at her. Her lips curl in a practiced smile. Her? I'm interested in her?

I nod slowly, thinking of the hours I've spent outside of her bungalow, letting the heat pound into my head, making sure I'm not noticed, watching the slow, sensual move of her life. Oh, yes. I am very interested in her.

She laughs, and starts prowling towards me. I take another slow, hyperextended drink, tasting the lime and gin, and wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. The music rises and falls between us, swelling with waves of people, moving in rhythm as the unearthly voice of a disco goddess caresses us all, filling the room with love and sex and a pulse that beats.

I'm breathing with the pulse, I'm thinking with the pulse, as this beautiful woman is moved towards me, riding the waves, a smile on her face. She's a goddess in purple, laughter hiding in her eyes, sex rising from her skin. And I have an errand to run that must involve her. When she reaches me, my heart is matching the last beats of the song, fading into the synthesized keyboards and monotonous underbeats of the next song.

Do you believe in heaven above? Do you believe in love? the world asks me. And for a moment, as she reaches me with eyes full of life and interest, I do.

Then she leans into me, her breath alcohol-soaked, with a hint of cigarette. "What's a nice straight boy like you doing in a place like this?" she murmurs into my ear. I shiver, but I can pull back now, and look her in the eyes honestly.

"I was waiting for you, of course."

And I'm not lying. She laughs, and I stand up, paying the bartender with a spare ten or twenty that I can toss out like popcorn at the circus. She looks at me, and sympathy and amusement cross her face.

"Boy," she says, drawling it out behind richly colored lips. "I'm gonna eat you alive."

We walk out of the club, which is crawling and teeming with people, so many that one face can't be remembered from the next, stained with disco-ball light, washed away with the beat and hypnosis of the music. Drowned in the experience, we're all anonymous here, and I'm counting on that as I lurch down the street with her, never quite managing to touch each other.

We reach a deserted alley, just a little spot behind a restaurant that's dark now. It must be three in the morning. The air is icy, waiting for the first touch of the sun to heat it up. She looks at me quizzically as I turn.

"We're not far from my room. Keep your pants on."

I bite my lip. It's just an errand. I'm just carrying out an order. I don't have a choice. I'm just doing an errand. She stares at me, bemused and irritated.

"Come on, let's go," she insists. "What are you waiting for?"

I pull out my gun, cocking it and aiming at speeds that seem too fast for anyone human, let alone me. Before she has time to scream twice, one bullet is in her stomach, and the other's in her face, splattering that beauty across the stucco wall of the restaurant. Now it's a sort of primitive art, a bunch of colors for the police to admire tomorrow morning when I'm long gone down the highway, on the way to another errand.

I look at what's left of her, slumped against the wall, no longer divine and pulsing with beat. Something turns in my stomach.

"I'm sorry," I mutter. And then I walk away.

Yeah, I'm sorry. Guys like me are always sorry, and always too late.

* * *

 

**Scully:**

How do you dress when you're trying to play scientist and seductress at the same time?

This is only one question of many that I ponder as I stand in front of the bathroom mirror, studying the face reflected in the glass and trying to create a balance. This face has to be more than one person at once while still remaining mine, which is not an easy task. So I examine myself, studying each fine line, each variation in color, each flaw and wondering how I can recreate myself.

After work last week, I realized for the twentieth time (with the help of a few cosmopolitans at a ritzy bar) that as useful as being inside the Consortium is, it's pointless if I don't take action against Johnny. I'm not here to be an insider. I don't think I can blow open the biggest scandal in American-- world-- history. I'm not here to destroy the Consortium. That's never been my purpose. Petty or not, I'm after one person and one person alone.

I look at my face critically and take out my pressed powder. I can't have a shiny nose. That would be unprofessional. And I need to tone down the eye shadow. While it's very attractive, it looks too flirty. Subtlety is a key word in the game I'm playing.

I pull away from the mirror and evaluate my face. It's much better. I hope that it'll be good enough for Johnny, because everything that I'm doing today is for her benefit. At least in the short run, though in the long run, it's all for me. Build her up, then knock her down, that's how this game is played. I mince and twist a little in the mirror. That's exactly how I'm going to do it. I'm going to create a dreamworld for her, and then-- poof.

I finish my examination and sit down in front of the mirror again, noticing the strangeness of my face. It's my face, with my features and my eyes, but they're strange. I don't quite recognize them. They carry this strange, alien energy that seeps out from under my skin, something that can't be concealed. Revenge is having a definite, physical effect on me. The woman in the mirror looks cold. She could almost be chiseled out of steel and polished into human form. Yet this is me in the mirror, but I don't know me. I don't know me at all. I can see her moving forward, doing things that I can't be capable of doing.

Can I really be the woman in the mirror? Can I walk into an office full of scientists, businessmen, and God knows who or what else and put on a performance of lies? If I do this, will I be the same person? Or will the Dana Scully I think I am be drowned under the waves of corruption, revenge, and anger?

More importantly, can I, in any incarnation I can dream up, really seduce Johnny?

I don't want to do it. The idea of touching her, kissing her, making love to her makes my skin crawl. The hand that she used to kill Mulder will be on my body. It won't hold back out of decency. The lips that whispered to me that she killed him because she had to will slide down my neck. They'll caress my spine. I can't bear to think of what those lips will do. The thought of her-- and me-- and us-- nauseates me. I can't force myself to play it out. I see her surrounding me, engulfing me, and then-- nothing. A script without pictures follows, leading to nothing except degradation.

Unable to look in the mirror any more, I stare at my hands, twisting and turning in my lap. They refuse to play along with the mirror. They move frenetically, writhing back and forth with all the nerves and doubt I refuse to acknowledge. They look like claws, desperately trying to move away from the smooth image they're attached to. They won't do. I've got to stop worrying. I just need to take a deep breath, move my hands apart, and remember who I am and what I'm doing.

"Stand up," I whisper to the image in the mirror. She stares at me blankly, like a statue. "Dana, stand up."

She doesn't move. We look at each other and my hands twist together again, tearing at themselves. No matter what I do, I cannot compel the woman in the mirror to move. She can't do this for me. I have to move myself, the real me, because that's the only person I can be.

I take a slow, ragged breath, and look down at my watch. Ten minutes. I have only ten minutes before I'm supposed to be sitting down in the gorgeous wood-paneled office that belongs to Johnny, telling a shitload of people about the latest micro-advancements in extraterrestrial germ warfare prevention while simultaneously giving off come-hither signals to the boss. Lateness is not tolerated, either. I have to move now, performer or not, steel or flesh. I have to get up. I have to go now.

I press my lips together in a final fit of nerves, smashing them together grotesquely, and then I get up. I smooth the creases on my suit, and do one last, quick survey of myself in the mirror. It's all right. I'm looking good. I can do this.

The halls are buzzing with people as I walk down them, but I don't hear them. They don't seem to be real. I don't think about them, or what I'm doing as I walk. I just walk through the crowd of ghosts, holding my briefcase. I'm trying to find a script to follow, and a principle to hold on to. I need to be the woman in the mirror, the steel woman, because she doesn't get afraid. Her fingers aren't icy cold with the dread of confrontation.

I open the door. The woman in the mirror walks in and closes it behind her. She looks at the woman sitting at a nice cherry desk, filing papers, and I realize that I can be her. If I push myself out of my head, I can be her. I can be anything I need to be for this cause, if I just don't inhabit my own head.

"Good morning, Doctor Scully," the secretary says crisply. I nod to her. "Here for the meeting?"

"Yes," I say simply. "Is it in there?"

"Yes. Go right in, everyone's waiting for you and Ms. Valmont," the secretary says, going back to the phone, the fax, and the computer, doing her part to keep the world running.

I walk into the room. Eyes flicker up and slide back down. Nobody here cares who I am. I'm another body who mutters excuse me and I'm sorry as I take a place at the round conference table, waiting for the arrival of the queen. Like automatons they wait, looking over reports for the fortieth time, tapping their feet, checking their watches. They seem to have one mind asking one question: Where's Johnny?

If I weren't so nervous, that might even be funny. But in the artificial chill of an air-conditioned boardroom, the idea that I could be someone who could outdo Johnny Valmont seems ridiculous. Next to her, we're minor-leaguers. What can I do against her? Slit my wrist again? Make ridiculous phone calls threatening to kill myself? I'm powerless next to her.

I look up for a moment, catching a glimpse of the woman in the mirror. Why not, she asks me, if that's what you need to do. If I need to do something, why should I hold back? It's the ends that matter in this game.

I look down at the table. I can do this, and the brief exhilaration of knowing that I can makes me smile momentarily with relief. Then I look at my watch. It's five past ten already. Where is Johnny? She's anal about being on time to meetings. I've heard horror stories about people who've shown up late to these things. Someone once said that she'd leave sex mid-orgasm before she'd be late.

The door flies open, and everyone's eyes are fixed on her, striding through the door with the wide and wild look I've only seen once or twice across her face. Everyone's jaw drops. Apparently they've never seen Johnny out of control, either.

"Get out!" she screams without looking at anyone. "All of you, just get the fuck out of here now!"

There's a moment of stunned shock as people try to make sense of things. She stares at us incredulously.

"I said GET OUT!" she shouts. "What the fuck part of that don't you understand? Are you fucking stupid? Get out! Get out! Get out NOW!"

The people here aren't really that stupid. They move. They start rushing out as fast as they can. I push my chair back slowly as Johnny's eyes meet mine. They narrow into slits.

"Not you," she says in murderous tones. I stand up slowly, watching her carefully. The rest of the people get out, leaving us alone in the echoing emptiness of her boardroom.

"What do you want?" I ask.

She reaches into her Armani jacket, and in one smooth motion, has a nine-millimeter pointed directly at me, as her feline eyes focus with the intensity of laser beams. I stare back at her, trying to be unafraid.

"I want you to tell me why you did it in the nine seconds you have before I empty this fucking gun into you," she growls. I gape at her.

Then she fires.

* * *

 

**Johnny:**

I miss, of course. I mean to miss. But Scully drops to the floor, hands over head and then she jumps up like a jack-in-the-box and this time the warm barrel of my gun is pressed hard against her temple. I'm pushing her back, back, back against the wall, pressing myself up against her so she can't get away from me.

"Johnny!" she yells. "Johnny, dammit-- Johnny!"

"Why did you do it?" I say, trying hard not to cry. I must not break here, not if it kills me. "ANSWER ME!"

"What did I do?" she asks. "I don't fucking know what I'm answering for, Johnny!"

That's rich. That's richer than Bill fucking Gates. I jab the gun into her temple again, pushing my body against hers harder. She feels like steel beneath me, and I can feel myself trembling, quaking at the knees. I lock my knees tight. I can't break down, not in front of her, not ever in front of this bitch.

"Johnny!" she snaps.

"You know," I hiss at her. "You fucking know what you did. Don't play innocent with me. I just wanna know how you did it, and why."

"I don't know what the fuck you are talking about," she growls back at me. "If you're going to kill me, do it, and stop pretending that you have a reason. But if there's a reason, you could at least deign to share with me."

"My mother," I tell her. "And my sister."

"What?" she says, looking big-eyed and dumb. Maybe if this were the Scully I knew before I gave her a job, I'd buy the stupid act. But somewhere along the line, Scully learned how to lie, and this is full of shit. I should just cap this bitch, go home, and make funeral arrangements. But I can't just do it. I want to know why my mother's dead and why Scully couldn't just go after me instead of pulling this shit.

"It's bullshit," I hiss at her. "You killed them, or you had someone do it for you. I don't care so much which, but you did it, and before I turn you into a colorful stain on my wall, I want to know why you couldn't just take your grudge out against me."

Her eyes widen. "I didn't," she whispers, now taking this innocent, horrified little tone in her voice. Give me a break. She's pulling out all the stops in her little game, and I'm not at all impressed. "I could have-- maybe if I'd thought of it-- but I didn't."

"Note my failure to believe you," I say dryly. "Why don't you just give up the fucking act, Scully? I can make this very brief-- one shot, bam, you're dead-- or I can make it take a long time. This room is soundproof-- and even if it weren't, who the fuck's going to stop me? So just tell me."

"Johnny, for the love of God, I didn't fucking kill your mother and your sister!" she shouts. "I'm really sorry that someone blew them away, but don't you think that's the breaks? That's what you told me when you killed Mulder, isn't it? These things happen."

Bitch. Fucking bitch. I cock the gun, and she stares at me with eyes narrow and face steely. She's not trembling at all. I can barely keep my arm from wobbling and whacking her in the temple over and over. But that's what she told me, isn't it? What the hell is there left for Scully to fear? Not death, that's for sure.

"Yeah, these things happen, and you don't give a god-damn," I tell her. "Give me one reason why I should believe your vengeful, lying bitch ass."

She gives me a look of sheer, unadulterated hatred. "Because if I wanted to get to you, I sure as hell wouldn't fuck around with your goddamned family. I hate you. Just you, Johnny. I want to make you hurt, but everyone else might as well not exist. Why else do you think I'm sitting here, playing goddamn employee of the month? It sure as hell isn't because I've changed my mind. I am going to take you down-- don't you ever doubt that. But when I do it, you are going to know it's me, and you aren't going to have to wonder why."

I slump back. Fuck her. Ohhhhh, fuck her. I move the gun away from her temple, absolutely beaten down. But then a small spark of latent, untapped fury wells up from the shock that's overwhelmed me and I backhand her right across the face.

Scully falls down on the floor, and she's flown five feet from the spot she was before. I stand there, breathing hard, not sure whether to cry or laugh. The sound of my breathing expands to fill the room, and I can't move. My mom is dead, my sister is dead, and she doesn't care. Nobody cares except for me, and I didn't think I did. I thought I was the baddest motherfucking bitch in the world, that I was too cool to give a damn. Now someone's laughing at me, because Mom is dead and Faith is dead, and it's my fault. And I do care. I care, and for an additional twist of the knife in my stomach, the woman I thought I was is staring at me, holding her face in her hand without tears.

"I should kill you anyway," I mutter, looking down at the floor.

"Probably."

"You're probably lying to me right now."

"It's possible. I do hate you, after all."

She's not making it any easier. I am, after all, ready to go nuclear at any moment now, and this ice princess routine is pushing every button I have, and wearing on my one good nerve. I don't want to kill Scully. I really don't. I'll regret it later. I don't like the people I love being dead.

The people I love being--

Fuck.

Danielle.

Oh, fuckity fuck fuck.

"You swear to God you didn't do it?" I ask, my breath coming more quickly now. I have to get out of here now. I have to get home now. "You didn't do it?"

"I said I fucking didn't," she says, cradling her face. "Are you going to shoot me or what?"

"Get out of here," I say, shaking my head. "Just get out of here. I have to go now."

"Johnny?" she asks.

"Just go, alright?" I yell. "Later. I'll deal with you-- I have to go."

I rub my face distractedly, and walk out of the boardroom, past my secretary, out of the office, onto the elevator, pushing the button over and over, trying to get things to move faster as my thoughts start racing. Whatever dickless piece of shit did this-- and for some reason, I don't believe it's Scully any more-- they wouldn't kill a baby. Would they? No, God, please, I think to myself as the elevator moves at a glacial pace.

The doors finally open, and I burst out of them, ready to run the entire distance to my apartment if I have to. I'm pumped so full of adrenaline I feel like I'm flying. I'm shoving anyone in my way out of it. The world is reduced to my heartbeat and the focus of my central vision. I have to get home now.

I'm through the doors of the lobby, and onto the street, shoving my way through like a madwoman. People are screaming at me, but I can't make out a word that they're saying. I don't give a damn what they're saying.

Someone grabs my arm. I shake it off. They grab me again, refusing to let go, and my head swivels. I'm going to give some asshole a piece of my mind the size of Texas. God damn it, don't people ever realize that something is going on, that I'm not just being insane for my own pleasure?

"Johnny!" someone yells at me.

"Fuck off!" I scream back.

"Johnny, what the hell is going on?" the someone insists, not letting go of me.

I finally recognize him. It's Skinner. What the hell is he doing here? Then I remember that, oh, shit, he's Danielle's father. Oh, shit shit shit.

"We need to go now," I tell him. He stares at me. "Come on! Now! Do you want your kid dead? NOW!"

He doesn't fight me, and then we're in a cab, racing for my apartment, and all I can think is God, please. Please just let me be in time.

* * *

 

**Skinner:**

I don't know for a minute if the woman next to me is Johnny or not. She looks like her, she talks like her, but she's not acting like her in the slightest. I can't get two coherent words out of her. All she's doing is screaming at our cab driver, cursing any tiny slow-down, and twitching like a madwoman. I'm agitated, too. I wonder if Johnny was serious about my kid dead, and what the hell she means by that anyway. My God, I can't believe I ever slept with this woman. I must have been drugged.

"Johnny--"

"Where are we? Are we-- oh, fuck-- keep going, hurry up!" Johnny yells at the cab driver. "What?"

I'm fairly sure she meant me, so I try to talk.

"What the hell is going on?"

"Good question," she says, bouncing distractedly. "Very good question. When I have the slightest fucking clue, I'll share."

"What about Danielle?" I insist.

"Why are you here?" she asks suddenly. "I forgot to ask."

"Danielle?"

"I asked you first-- well, no I didn't, but-- why are you here?" she asks. I sigh.

"I was trying to look in on Scully. I was worried about her. I hadn't heard from her since--" since she had informed me of her intention to get revenge on you, I think but don't say.

Her eyes cross and she leans up near the driver again. "Can't you make this fucking thing move any faster? I'll pay the motherfucking ticket. If you get me home soon, I'll fucking pay for your entire fucking family to come up from Mexico or Bangladesh or whatever country they're from, just hurry!" she yells, proving once again how very sensitive the mother of my child is. Then she turns on me. "Were you worried that Scully had taken a big fucking Glock to her skull? Or just mine?"

"Would you mind telling me why the hell we're rushing over to Danielle before I lose my mind first?" I ask acidly. She raises her eyebrows, and laughs mirthlessly for a moment.

"Someone-- perhaps your dear dear Scully-- blew away my mother in the last couple of days, and my sister. It follows that they'd--"

I stare at her. "Johnny!"

"No fucking shit," she replies. "Fuck, I can't sit in here anymore. Pull us the fuck over, we'll run, we'll-- I said pull the fuck over, don't you speak English?"

The guy pulls over. Johnny throws a couple of twenties at him, and she hits the pavement at sixty, running down the street like The Flash, and I follow behind her as best as I can. My heart is pounding in my chest and I don't know how I'm involved in this mess again, but I am up to my neck in the world of shadow governments, conspiracies, and betrayal.

But to hell with that. I have a personal stake here. So I pound down the mean city sidewalks with the devil in a grey suit, and she's trying to fly, twisting and turning down about ten blocks before we reach her fancy city brownstone.

She grabs her purse and starts looking for keys. I hear her crying, and I feel a weird sort of pity for her. I can't see the tears, but I can hear the strange, keening moan that sounds so completely human I'm unnerved. This is Johnny Valmont, but the tears choking from her throat as she pulls out a set of keys and tremblingly finds the one that fits the lock are terrible and heart wrenching. I actually pity her as she brushes back a stray lock of hair, trying to shove the right key into the lock and save the day in the nick of time.

A cab squeals to a halt behind us as Johnny finally finds the key, shivering and shuddering. She jams it into the lock fitfully.

"Hey!" someone cries, jumping out and slamming the car door. I turn around. It's Scully. "What's going on?"

"Keep that fucking bitch away from me," Johnny snaps, turning the lock and running up the stairs. Her voice echoes from the hallway, peculiarly fragile. "Danielle? I'm home! Danielle? Bethany? Someone please be here!"

I turn to look at Scully and I step back in fear. In the eyes of a woman I've always respected-- and sometimes believed I loved-- is something monstrous, something so completely free of decency and sanity that my skin starts to crawl. I have to look away from her face, so I look at her clothes instead. She's wearing a pantsuit that reminds me of Kate Hepburn and old movies, and the same jacket she wore the last time I saw her, but instead of despair, I feel madness, and absolute determination.

"What?" she asks.

"I have to get in there. Danielle--" and I run, taking the stairs three at a time, getting away from whatever it is in Scully that's turned her into this horrific shell.

"DANIELLE!" Johnny screams. "Where are you? Danielle--"

The minute I reach the living room, I understand Johnny's hysteria. There's blood on the wall here, but no bodies, nothing except for blood and the smell of gunpowder. Johnny stands in the center of the room, staring around the room futilely, screaming at the top of her lungs. I catch a good glimpse of her face, which is streaked in tears as she wipes them away, with more and more strength. Her face is getting streaked with red welts. I walk up behind her and take her hands, pulling them back.

"Come on, Johnny. We have to keep looking," I tell her. "You can't get hysterical."

She stares at me with those green eyes bleary with tears. "Walter," she says distractedly, using my first name for the first time I can remember. Then her face drains of color. "Oh, God. What if she's dead? What if they're all dead? I should have-- I should have--"

"Come on," I insist. She nods at me, and we walk around the room, looking for bodies, looking for anything definitive. I notice the blood trail finally, hard to see against the dark carpeting. We follow it and say nothing. There's nothing to say. We don't have a relationship. We have Danielle, and we each have our own reasons to want to save her.

One of the doors is ajar, and Johnny shoves it open, pulling away from me. "Danielle? Bethany? Dan--"

Her voice resolves itself into a high-pitched scream. I rush in, and something catches in my throat. There's a dead woman on the ground. You know simply by looking at the peculiar angle she's laying in, or perhaps that's from my experience as a law enforcement agent. There is a lot more blood in here. The first shot must have only glanced her in the living room, and the fatal shot was fired in here. I look around. The splatter on the wall seems to substantiate that theory.

"God," Johnny whispers. "God." She bends down and looks at Beth, and I can see her hands trembling slightly. I can tell she wants to touch her, but she doesn't. Johnny knows enough about law enforcement to know you don't touch a murder victim. She stands up again. "Beth, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry--"

Trembling, she stands up. "Danielle?"

"Johnny--" I say. Because there is no way the baby is alive. There's no way. She shakes her head fitfully and starts looking through the room, under the crib, in the playpen, calling for Danielle over and over. I turn my head away from her, just in time to see Scully stand in the doorway, watching with me. Her eyes widen as Johnny flings the closet door open, clawing through the clothes, making strange, trapped noises in her throat.

And then I hear the sound, clear as day. Someone else is crying, and for a minute, I think I'm losing my mind. But then I realize that it's the crying of a small child, and I wonder how on earth that Danielle is alive and in the closet.

"Johnny?"

"I'm a little busy," she says, wiggling around in the back recesses of a closet that is definitely a little big for a baby's room. I notice that there's another bullet hole in the door. How on earth did someone get off at least three shots in a New York apartment without the police being here already? I'm mystified. Scully is looking at me, and I shrug as Johnny finally emerges with a howling, sobbing little girl who has a lot of blood on her and tears rolling down her grubby little face.

"Johnny," I repeat. "How on earth-- how did--?"

"I don't know," she whispers, holding the baby. Danielle looks older than I remember her. She probably even crawls, and it hurts me to think I don't know how old my own daughter is. "I guess that when whoever did this came in, Danielle was asleep in here already, and that Beth ran in here, hid her in the closet and then-- I don't care."

She looks down at her shoes. "Shit. We have to call NYPD. I hate them," she growls. "Come on, Danny, we have to call the police. And you know what I think of them." Danielle sticks her tongue out and wails again. "Yes, that's exactly it."

The three of us are about to walk out of the room in a strange, almost domestic peace, despite the blood and the bullets and the longstanding feud, when I realize that Scully-- the unwanted fourth-- is still standing in the doorway, blocking the way out, and Johnny's grip has tightened on Danielle. An explosion is about to occur.

"Scully," I say. She looks at me, and then slowly moves out of Johnny's way. Johnny nods, but her free hand curls into a fist, as we all walk down the hall to the living room, silent.

"Call the police, Scully," Johnny tells her acidly as I sit down on the couch, stunned. "If you want, you can even mention that you're a trespasser and murder suspect."

Danielle wails again, louder. Johnny shushes her and looks at Scully with sheer hatred in her eyes. Scully stares back at her with an icy emptiness, picks up her cell phone, and begins to punch in the numbers.

* * *

 

**Spender:**

I'm not going to crack. I'm not going to crack. I'm running like hell for mission headquarters because I have to report about my successes, but I'm not cracking up under the strain. There's no way, because I'm not really working for them, not in my heart anyway. I'm just a guy doing a job.

That girl was innocent. She wasn't even fucking related to the Valmont family. I got there and she was singing with the stereo, waiting for her lunch to be ready. She was singing badly, at the top of her lungs, and she really didn't care.

"I'm so happy 'cause today I found my friends," she sang, twirling around, "They're in my head--"

When she looked at me, she already knew what I was. Or if she didn't know who I was, she knew why I was there. Maybe I gave it away with the way I moved. Maybe it's plain as the nose on my face that I'm a murderer, and not even a murderer. I'm an assassin, without any desire of my own. I'm a pair of hands, a mask for someone else.

She ran, and I fired after her, hitting her right in the thigh, and she crumpled, crawling along to the nursery. I didn't want to follow her, but orders are orders. I had to follow her, but I was slow, too slow really. When I walked into the room covered with Disney and Teletubbies, I was sick. But I had my gun, and when I turned and saw her standing in the window, looking down, I fired again. This time I hit her low in the back.

She turned and looked at me slowly, her face white with pain, and streaked with blood and sweat. I don't know how she held herself up, but her eyes were wild with pain and desperation.

"You're too late, anyway. I threw her out the window," she whispered at me. I didn't believe it for a second. I pushed her out of the way, and looked down. I didn't see anything, nothing that could be a baby on the sidewalk. No one would do that anyway. When I turned back, I caught her looking at the closet out of the corners of her eyes. It was fairly obvious where the baby was.

"That's really not such a good hiding place," I remember telling her. She stared at me, oozing and sniffling. I fired into the door, right where a child could be hidden. "See? Now there's no more baby."

That's when she started to cry, and I lost my shit for a minute. "Don't cry! God dammit, you know what kind of woman you're working for? Do you know? You're lucky you didn't have something worse happen. Stop crying, do you hear me? Stop crying!"

She started to cry harder, and the sound of her sniveling and gulping was too much for me. I lifted my gun, aimed it at her skull, and then shut her up for good.

That realization-- that I killed a woman for crying too loud-- makes me stop for a minute. I almost throw up. But I have to go back to headquarters and report. When I see one of those smug nobody motherfuckers in a black sedan a little while later, I'm almost glad.

"Have you finished your mission, Agent Spender?"

"I'm not at liberty to discuss that," I say calmly. And so we drive all the way back to the building, silent as we exit the car, silent as we ride the elevator, silent as we enter the office and the same group of men and extraterrestrial wait for my report.

"Mr. Spender," an older man says as I enter. "Have you succeeded in your assignment?"

"I have," I reply.

"Excellent work, Mr. Spender," the same man says. "Why don't you sit down?"

I sit down. I look at the assortment of tyrants and assholes I've gotten myself involved with, and I try not to shudder. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, and by trying to get free of a bad situation, I'm stuck in a worse one. They all look at me with eager, inviting glances, and I feel sick.

"We're impressed with your work, Mr. Spender," one of the other men says. "We think you're ready to learn more about our ultimate goal."

"I thought that was taking care of Johnny," I say. "I-- I didn't just kill those people for some sort of loyalty test?"

"No, of course not," someone else assures me. "Your participation was necessary in causing Valmont to be distracted. She's not going to be able to handle our plan now because of her emotional distress. But Johnny was not the ultimate goal. Our goal is the same as ever-- colonization."

My heart stops, but only for a second. Colonization? I've been helping colonization? How could I be so stupid?

"I see," I say flatly.

"You, of course, for your assistance, will be spared."

"Of course."

"You see, your organizations have been built, basically, upon a hypocrisy," the same "man" continues. "Your leaders have sworn that they were searching for a way for colonization to be painless, but in fact, they were stalling, trying to find a way to save your petty species-- or failing that, themselves. We allowed this hybridization because we found it interesting. But now is the time to end the lies and the stalling. Colonization will happen soon."

My heart stops again. I force my tongue to move. "When?"

"Within the month," is the reply. My hands start to tremble, but I hide them under the table.

"How?" I whisper, forcing myself to stay calm.

"That was the question, wasn't it? Originally, your organization was supposed to distribute the virus, start the process. But when your Ms. Johnny Valmont took control, this became impossible. We had to find a different way-- and it was so simple, thanks to your mother."

"My-- my mother?"

"Her ranting that we were prophets come to save humanity gave us an idea," I'm told. My stomach twists. "We've noted your species holds an especial connection to the God reborn-- such figures as Jesus, King Arthur, et cetera. What better way to convince humanity than to stage a resurrection?"

Oh God. Oh, God, if there is a God. "Who?"

"The Prophet of the Citadel of the Last Days," he replies glibly. "A man who's seen the fiery pit of hell, but was retrieved from the impotent wrath of God by us. A man who's been dead, but is now alive, exalted because he always believed--"

I know who it is. "Fox Mulder was murdered four months ago," I say.

"Maybe, maybe not," he says. "See for yourself."

One of the others pushes a button on a remote, and suddenly a screen rolls down, and I see Mulder. He's standing in front of a surprisingly large flock, and he's preaching.

"The Truth is all around us! It's ineffable yet tangible, a sign of the mystery of the Ultimate, which is above us, though we reside in its bosom-- and if we but surrender to it, we shall be made transcendent--"

Fuck me. He's not bad, whether he's clone or the genuine article. His sort of heartwarming mumbo-jumbo is easily digested in a world where people want to believe in anything that makes them feel good. Whoever came up with this plan was pretty good. Johnny is going to be furious when she finds out. If she finds out. I imagine she's not supposed to.

"I see," I say dully.

"It's simplicity itself," he-- this alien creature who looks like a human being-- tells me. "The Citadel is going to hold a revival meeting on the Washington Mall in three weeks. We intend to release the virus there. It will spread like wildfire among the converted."

"But quarantine--"

"It's going to move too fast. FEMA will be in there, and then you know the rest of the story."

I do. Oh, Lord God, I do. And it's not "and they all lived happily ever after," either. This is the fiery pit of hell and the four horsemen riding through the sulfur and brimstone.

"Mr. Spender," I hear. "Mr. Spender?"

"I'm sorry, what?" I ask, keeping myself in check just barely. I'm not gonna crack. I'm not.

"Now that you're a part of the plan, we have another mission for you."

"Oh," I say dully. "Yes?"

They start outlining the plan. Halfway through, I close my eyes, and try not to scream. But I say yes when they ask me, because I have no choice. I can't do anything, so I don't. I just keeping seeing the dead girl singing, dancing around the living room as she declares:

"Sunday morning is every day for all I care-- and I'm not scared-- light my candles in a daze 'cause I found God--"

I found God, all right. He's the biggest bitch of them all.

* * *

 

**Johnny:**

I'm numb, but not the comforting sort of numb where you can't feel anything and you're safe from the world. I'm the sort of numb that comes after being bombarded with too much and too many, a dull ache that's inescapable and banal and yet still painful. The police ask questions upon questions. They rope off the nursery, take samples of blood, look for footprints. The flashbulb of the crime photographer's camera pops a thousand times, taking in every angle. NYPD has us sitting in the stairwell while they investigate, and all I want to do is go lay down in my bed and go to sleep to get away from all the stupid people.

"Do you have any idea who might have done this, Miss Valmont?" Detective Logan asks for the fifth or sixth time.

"I dunno," I say dully, looking into space. "Lots of people, maybe. I'm not too popular at work, you could say."

"You're the boss, Miss Valmont. How many of your employees do you consider capable of murder?"

"I don't know. I run a big company. Who knows these days who's capable of murder?" I say. The words are all running into sand. "Nobody threatened me in advance. Nobody said they were gonna do this. I found about my mother this morning, my sister a little while later. I ran right home. I don't know. Maybe it's the American government."

"Are you a conspiracy theorist, Miss Valmont?"

"No, detective, I am not," I reply. My voice sounds soft, weak, blurred into the numbness. "I just don't get along well with the government."

"You have two members of the FBI-- or former members-- sitting here with you. You worked for the FBI. You don't get along with the government?"

"What's that mean, really? I have a criminal record, and I killed a man in self-defense nearly two years ago, and I'm a shady character and how I ended up like this is confusing you," I say icily. "I don't know anything that can help you, detective. I knew not to touch the body, I knew not to do anything except wait outside for you. Please, can you stop asking questions? I have funeral arrangements. I have my daughter to think about. She's only eight months old, you know, and she's in a lot of danger right now. And she's hungry."

The detective wants to say something, but Skinner stops him. "Not tonight, Mike. She's in shock. I'll have her call you tomorrow."

Like hell I will. The only reason I called the police was because Bethany was an innocent kid who didn't deserved to be quietly disposed of by a bunch of Consortium ghouls. Her parents deserve to hear something, know something about what happened to her. I don't think it would be right to disappear her. Someone would miss her. Hell, I miss her. I try to move, but I'm frozen.

"We're not going to be done with your apartment until at least tomorrow, Miss Valmont," Logan says. "I'll take you and your daughter to a hotel."

"Fuck that," I murmur. "I can't watch a kid right now. Walter, do you think you might be able to? I don't want her in any more danger. I think you can handle whatever dickless fuckface did this. Would you?"

"Yeah," he says. "How long should I--?"

"Til I call? Probably tomorrow. I dunno. I'll call you," I say vaguely, still trapped in this slow-moving nightmare. It's almost as if Danielle were dead. I can't muster up any energy to worry about her. Skinner can take care of her. She's his daughter, too.

"All right," he says. "Detective Logan?"

"Give me a number to reach you at. We're going to have more questions," he tells Skinner. I'm so tired. I want to lay down and sleep, and they're going to make me go to a hotel where the air-conditioner is on at full blast. I should go to the Waldorf-Astoria. I can always get a place there. And there will be a mini-bar. "Miss Valmont, I can reserve your room?"

"That won't be necessary," Scully pipes in. "I'll take care of her."

"Like hell," I say, rousing a little energy. "You can fuck off, because I can call my goddamn cab to a hotel, dammit. I don't need you anywhere near me."

"Waldorf-Astoria, right?" Scully says. "You can't expect anyone is going to let you walk out of here alone, can you? You're in no shape to be alone."

"I don't want your company, Scully. I need to lay down and get some sleep. I don't feel well," I say, trying very hard not to let the police know I still might suspect her. If she did this, I want her available, not sitting in county. If she did this, nobody's killing her except me.

"And that is why I'm coming with you to the hotel."

I don't fucking understand her. She has to guess I'm ready to strangle her, but she keeps pushing the point. But nobody else understands that, except for Skinner, and he has a responsibility to Danielle. He even looks pained as he leaves the two of us alone, glaring at each other. The detective is of course oblivious. Finally, Scully stands up, and gives me a look that tells me I'm coming with her. I sullenly follow, thinking of the ways I could kill her and make it look like an accident.

We don't speak in the cab. We don't speak during the ten minutes it takes for me to get a luxurious suite in the hotel. Finally, in the elevator, she looks at me.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Fuck off and die."

"Who do you think did it? Really?"

"Fuck off, Scully."

She walks in front of me, pushing me to the wall of the car. "Do you think I did it? Still?"

"I don't know," I say. "Maybe. In any case, I don't want you around me anymore."

She puts one hand on my shoulder. Her fingernails are Chanel Vamp, but it's a short manicure. "Then I should go, shouldn't I? I should let you go find your room and your mini-bar and do what a decent human being would do, shouldn't I?"

"You're not going to, are you?" I ask, pushing her away.

"Did you? What have you done with people in pain?" she asks. The elevator doors slide open, and I push past her, trying to evade her somehow. But I know she's not going to leave me alone. I fumble with the magnetic card, sliding it in the wrong way, and she's got me. "You didn't answer my question."

"No, I didn't," I say. "But have we ever claimed I was decent?"

Her hand is cold against my neck. I shiver, reverse the card, and get the door open. We don't move. I try to shake her hand off my neck, but it stays there, dead weight. I turn my head and look at her.

"Is that your excuse?" she asks, refusing to let me go.

"Scully--"

"Can I come in?" she asks.

"What the hell," I reply dully, opening the door. The room is overwrought, but all I can see is the bed. I kick my heels off, and start rubbing my neck, walking towards it. I don't care what she's up to. I don't care if she sits there and leers at me all know. I am tired. I am going to lie down.

"What do you think you're doing?" she asks me as I wander halfway across the room.

"Going to bed," I reply. "My mom is dead, Scully. I had the scare of my life with Danielle. You can stay, I don't give a damn."

I stumble over to the bedcovers, pulling them back slowly. She walks over to the curtains and throws them open, revealing the New York skyline. I slip under the covers, unimpressed.

"You give a damn," she says, taking off her jacket. "You're just so proud about not giving a damn you have to pretend it doesn't matter. You're no different than anyone else when you're hurting, Johnny."

"And what are you going to do? Make me feel worse?" I ask.

She steps out of her shoes and walks to the side of the bed. "I love how you try to weasel out of everything, Johnny," she whispers, bending down right next to my ear. "You think just because you've had a bad day, I'm not going to make it worse?"

"I'm supposed to be afraid, right?" I ask. She grazes my earlobe briefly with her lips, and laughs a little. It's a strange sensation. I shiver, and pull back, looking into her eyes. The first little bit of fear seeps into my stomach. A smile crosses her lips and she looks down on me hungrily.

"Not-- just-- yet."

* * *

 

**Scully:**

I feel dizzy and feverish for a minute, but it passes. I stand up, looking down at her curled into the fetal position on the bed. I remember suddenly the first time I saw her after she had "died" and how horrified I was but at the same time how I was glad that we were going to finish our affairs. It's over a year later-- and it feels like ten-- and we're still engaged in our own special world. Maybe I'll never be free of her, not until we're both dead.

I think I understand now how Mulder felt about Krycek, how overwhelming the fascination can be. When I think of Johnny, passion tints every overtone. It makes every breath alive with some meaning. It's a paralyzing fascination. Even now, when I could probably kill her without resistance, I can't seem to act decisively. I can't get away from her.

I do walk away, though-- to the mini-bar. I take out a tiny bottle of Jack Daniels. "Want one?" I ask casually.

"No," she replies. I shrug, pull out a few more bottles, and walk back to the bed. I open the first one, and slug back the whiskey in one stinging, painful gulp. "What are you doing?"

"Drinking," I reply curtly. "Thinking. The usual. Did you really love your mother, Johnny?" I ask, picking up one of the tequila bottles.

"Fuck you."

"I really want to know," I say. I start unbuttoning my blouse. The material is sticky, confining, and I can't stand it. I leave it on, though, showing off the skin underneath, a striptease of sorts. "Did you love her? Is that why you feel so bad?"

"Maybe I loved her, I don't know. I didn't mean for her to get killed," Johnny says dully. I slug back the tequila, then remind myself I can't get drunk or compassionate. Now is not the time. "I loved my sister. Poor kid. Didn't deserve half the shit she got. And I really liked Bethany. None of them should have died."

It's too hot. I take off my shirt, drop it in a crumpled pile at my feet. The windows are wide open. I would like to fuck against the window, maybe. It's an intriguing thought.

"It's your fault, you know."

"No shit it's my fault," she growls. I laugh, and kick off my shoes. Then I get on the bed, perching below her.

"Even if I did it?" I ask, pulling at her nylons. She kicks at me, and I take her foot in my hand and start rubbing it in slow, methodic circles, refusing to let go as my hand drifts upward. "It's still your fault even if I did it."

"Fuck you."

"Pretty soon," I reply. "You told me, didn't you, that we can't resist each other. Remember what you told me? I'm going to watch you battle a thousand demons and lose. You know it's going to happen. Inevitably. You're going to let me take off your nylons, then you're going to loosen that blouse, and then it'll be the same as it ever was. If you just give in, it'll happen sooner. Maybe it won't hurt so bad to know that you'd fuck me even if I had done it. And you would, wouldn't you?"

She moans. I'm thrilled. The sound is weak, miserable, but nonetheless aroused. I slide my hands further up her leg, to the warming inside of her thigh. God have mercy on the miserable remnants of my soul. I decide to lay my head on the top of her leg, and I kiss her right where my lips fall, a slow, warming kiss as my hand strokes the hidden skin.

"Talk to me, Johnny," I say, digging my nails into her thigh.

"Go to hell," she says, her voice sore and rough.

"At least say yes or no. I don't want you to think you're not a part of this game," I say, rubbing against her leg mercilessly, like a cat in heat. She whimpers. "Yes or no?"

There's silence for a moment.

"Yes," she whispers.

I hear myself laugh, a strange, hungry cackle, as I move back, taking off my bra and throwing it off to the side. I feel so hot. It's like I'm not myself anymore. My clothes are too heavy, too hot on my skin. I have to get rid of them before I can go after her. I rub my cheeks. They're burning, but my hands are so cold. My skin is cold. I fumble with the zipper on my skirt, but soon it's gone, waiting on the floor along with my nylons.

Her nylons are easier. I tear them to shreds with my teeth and my fingers, until her curvy legs are revealed through the dark material. And still she's curled up, inaccessible. That won't do, not at all.

"Come on, Johnny, be a little helpful," I say. "At least get on your back."

She moans again, but turns over just enough that my hands can reach all the way up under her skirt and remove both nylons and underwear with one rough tug. God, I'm hot, but my fingers feel like ice. They rub into her skin, and she's burning me, she's so hot. Underneath my fingers she's writhing, moving the way I feel, delirious.

I push the grey material of her suit upwards, revealing more and more skin that I start to devour, rubbing up against her slowly, achingly, pressing my breasts against her, an infinitesimal burn towards what I told her was inevitable. Her breath changes with every move I make, catching and gasping as I push her legs further apart, forcing that grey skirt up further and further.

My fingers move up further, to where she's getting warmer and wetter. It's driving me crazy, making me sore with desire. The idea that I have this power over my old tormenter makes my pulse speed up, makes my hips sway and thrust with need. I can make her do whatever I want, and it fascinates me, this absolute power. I move a finger into her, where she is slick and hot. My head is resting on her hip. She keeps shifting her hips in anticipation.

"Don't move," I tell her. I pull my hands away and spread her legs wide, wider, tearing that grey skirt of hers, as I shift up and tear open her shirt. "You want it, don't you? Stay still. Don't move your hips. Stay still."

I move in between her thighs, rocking my own hips against her hard. I want to slam my fingers between my own legs. Better yet, I want her fingers in me, hot and wet as I slide against them. The idea of that is almost enough to put me over the edge.

But not yet. I lower my head to her breast and start sucking at it through the material of her bra, nipping roughly. I feel her staying as still as she can, even though I'm slamming into her hips with mine, the outsides of my thighs rubbing against her inner thighs, which have to be aching by now. She stays still, breathing faster as I pull at the skin between her breasts, biting at her, trying to break the skin.

"Please," I think I hear her say. She shudders for a second, breath sobbing against her ribcage. My hands slip up to her bra, pull it down, and I wrap my mouth around the other breast, tugging at it with my teeth as I slam into her hips again, meaner, cruder.

She's burning up under me. I don't know if I can hold out much longer as I bite down again on her breast, too hard this time, way too hard. Johnny screams, and the iron sting of blood hits my tongue. I let go, licking my way down the bared parts of her stomach, forgetting that I've drawn blood now. The taste of her is on my tongue, and I'm lost as I slide aside just a little and move my fingers to her wet pussy, teasing against it, occasionally brushing against her clit, my mouth waiting at the hollow of her hip. The feeling of my breath against the skirt must be killing her. But she still doesn't squirm.

I keep rubbing against her, breathing heavily, teasing her. I don't know why I want to move so slowly, but I do. My God, I'm dizzy. I feel as if I might explode. The ache between my legs is killing me. I want to feel her mouth there, hot as blood, and the desire is painful and maddening as I finally slip three fingers inside her and start pumping them in and out in frenzied rhythm, driven by the beat of my pulse.

She still doesn't move her hips. I can't stand it, not in this delirious fervor. How does she do it? I dig the fingernails of my free hand into my thigh. I hate her. I really hate her.

The breath catches in her throat with a small, squeaking whine. I'd forgotten about that. She's close, or she wouldn't be holding her breath now, trembling slightly around her ribcage. I gaze up at her from my place at her hip, watching her breasts rise and fall as I continue that slow, pounding pace with my fingers. Finally I pull my finger across her clit hard, and I hear that sickly, ragged gasp that signals she's there, and she is, convulsing around my fingers, whispering something I can't understand. It might be please, it might be yes, it might be my God. But in the end, it's incoherent.

I pull away from her, still so dizzy, as she rolls onto her side, curling back into the fetal position as if that's going to save her. I crawl behind her, throwing an arm over her and pulling her back towards me, kissing her shoulder, sucking at it hard before I continue my assault up her collarbone and neckline, nipping at her skin the entire way.

"Not satisfied yet?" she asks, looking over at me with a face that looks streaked with tears, even with that flush of orgasm still in her face. "I forgot, you're not going to stop until I'm a quivering mass at your feet."

I climb on top of her again, looking down and feeling that same thrill of power and arousal. It's like a drug, and for a minute I think I understand what it might be like to be Johnny Valmont. That gives me the chills, but I remember I'm not really in this for a personal power trip. Not the same sort as she was, anyway. I bend down and kiss her, pulling her tongue into my mouth, feeling the swell of her body under me.

"Darling, we've only just begun," I whisper.

"And whenever it ends, Mulder still won't be back," she replies. "You can be whatever twisted version of yourself or me you need to be, you can ride me with a leather crop, tell me how I got my mother killed, make my life a living hell, but what the hell do you get out of it? If that's what we've only just begun, I have a few pointers."

She looks at me calmly, and I stop, disgusted with myself. I stare at her silently, feeling sullen resentment build up in my stomach, burning it like acid. The same as ever, world without end, amen. I'm just the apprentice of whatever great master of truth or evil I choose to trail along. How could I ever dare to challenge them?

I close my eyes, and then open them again. I dare because I have nothing else. I lean down over her, pressing my body against hers, cheek to cheek, pinning her wrists to the bed.

"But Johnny," I whisper, pinning her hips against the mattress and rubbing my cheek against hers. "I want you with me in hell. I want you to share every moment with me. Together, because isn't that what you really want? If I told you what I needed now was your mouth on every part of my body, that I wanted you to hurt me, you'd do it. Because no matter how hard you try, I get under your skin. And that's what I get out of it."

I run my teeth against her jawline. She gasps when I find a spot just beneath her ear to circle with my tongue. She starts twisting against my hands on her wrists, electrified.

"Are you ready to listen to me now? Or are you still going to show me how you don't need me?" I ask. "How much you don't want me--"

She breathes noisily for a minute. "Let me go, damn it," she hisses. "I'll show you hell."

I release her wrists. And I'm on my back suddenly, staring up at a bloodshot pair of green eyes that shine with desire. She swoops down on me and bites my lips, breaking the skin. I taste my blood, and suddenly I don't think anymore. I let go of any remaining grip of control I have and spiral into darkness, knowing who will be beside me when I wake up.

And I just don't care.

* * *

 

**Johnny:**

The light is strange, pale, and old when I open my eyes this morning. It goes with this unreal setting, a room drenched with sex and rage, a rage so full of pain and madness that it drains the sunlight of any energy. Maybe it's just cloudy today. I don't know. My God, I ache. I feel ten years older, drained, sucked dry, beaten into submission.

The little succubus is sleeping like the dead next to me, covered in just a sheet. There are a set of deep scratches in her back. I don't remember giving them to her. I don't want to remember it. I stare at them for a moment-- they're bright and colorful against that pale skin, not much darker than the ivory sheets. Then I shiver a little, and quietly slip out of bed, in dire need of a cup of coffee. I could also use a shower, but I don't want to see my face in a mirror, not until I can get a lot of concealer and foundation onto it, anyway. Last night was--

Last night. Fuck. I've had a lot of rough sex in my time but nothing like that. After I bit her, when the taste of her blood got into my mouth and the burn of her rage into my blood, the night gets fuzzy. It's mostly indistinct, with a few glaring, horrible images sifting out of the static. I notice a lot of scratches, bites, and other assorted gifts all over my arms and legs, and all I can think is fuck. This is simply impossible to wrap my mind around at all.

I do need to shower. The smell of the coffee might wake Scully up, and I'm not ready to handle her. I need to get clean of her, wash that bitch right out of my hair. I won't, though, no matter how I try. She's under my skin, an infection they can't cure. But a shower is a good idea. I need to clean up. I need to get out of this room.

She's awake when I come back swathed in a big, luxurious bathrobe. I'm stealing this bathrobe. It's one of those things I feel entitled to. She's stretched out on the bed, covered by the sheet, looking at me with eyes that say so much in a language I don't understand. I don't know what to say either. There aren't words for what happened last night. But this silence is killing me. I have to break it.

"Do you want to take a shower?" I ask awkwardly, taking the inane route out. "I need to call NYPD, to see if I can get back into the apartment. Then I think I should probably call Skinner--"

She looks at me. Doesn't speak, and tells me exactly what she thinks of showers, NYPD, Skinner, and my pleasantries. I shut up and flop down in the nearest chair. She tilts her head and looks at me, sending a shiver of fear down my spine. Finally, after a long moment, she starts to speak aloud.

"They called," she says quietly. "For a minute they thought I was you. You need to call the private line to Julian. I don't know what that means. Do you?"

I do, and I don't bother to answer her when I hurry over to the phone. My luck has gone to shit lately. Private line to Julian means that something is very, very wrong, DEFCON 2, yellow alert, maybe red alert. But Scully can't know that. So I yawn and rub my eye, as if it were nothing. I can't seem to fool her, though. She sits up, watching me as I pick up the phone. It's like being stalked by a cat. There's so much silence before the fatal attack comes--

"Hello?" the person on the other end of the line asks.

"This is Joanne, I'm looking for Julian," I say, giving the informal password. "That's Joanne, J-O-A-N-N-E."

"Thank God," the person says. "We'd been informed you had been moved to the Waldorf, but you didn't answer the phone--"

"I was in the shower," I say. "I was led to believe Julian had a message for me."

There's an uncomfortable pause on the other end of the line. I start to get nervous. Bad news in my business tends to mean the Apocalypse is upon us. For all I know, outside my window is the smoking ruin of New York. It would explain the strange light.

"The news isn't good. And right now, no one can be assured of a secure line. The rats are in the walls this time," the guy says evasively. "If you get my meaning."

"Well, fuck, even rats understand metaphors," I reply. "Spit it out, and anyone who's listening, I know you're listening, so fuck off!"

Scully looks at me and smiles. I flip her off.

"All right, then," he says. "We have organized internal corruption, sir, that extends to the highest levels. They've turned on us, sir. Operations have begun to begin--"

"When I said spit it out, I meant in English," I say testily.

"The motherfuckers-- and there's a list when you come in today, Johnny- - they brought back Fox Mulder, or some motherfucking evil clone, the guy didn't know which-- they've got him preaching alien love, moving like a wildfire through all sorts of abductees and other suggestible sorts. He's holding a rally on the Washington Mall in three weeks, I'd say about forty thousand strong at the least, probably closer to eighty thousand. They're going to infect his followers with a slow moving version of Purity, and when they disperse--"

"Oh, God the fuck dammit!" I shriek. "Dammit! Shit! Dammit!"

"There's more."

"Of course there's more. Let me guess," I say, reeling. "These are the masterminds that pulled all the assassination shit."

"You got it. That was supposed to have you completely distracted while they used our resources to set this up. Then by the time you figured it out, it would be too late. Now-- it's dicey, but we've got the jump on them now."

No fucking duh. I turn my head and notice Scully is sitting there, wide-eyed, and I don't care. I am furious. It's all well and good to attack me personally. Actually, it's not, but compared with fucking the world like this, it's Sunday breakfast with the preacher. Forty thousand infected drones could drop North America in no time. I've run a thousand mock-ups. We lose the country in six weeks with a scenario like this. Within three months, the survivors are living in igloos and human civilization is a myth. Sweet God in his heaven.

"You bet," I snarl into the phone. "How'd you find this out?"

"Apparently, someone who's still loyal to us has been in on this a while. He knew these people hated you, but last night, someone who was closer to the inner circle tipped him off about the greater plan," the guy tells me. "These guys haven't been particularly circumspect, either. They're all over the news, though they've made Mulder stay out of the spotlight. But sooner or later, they were going to blow their cover. At least we have that, sir. How long can you keep a secret when you insist on going to the media?"

I put my hand on my forehead. Scully shrugs and turns on the TV. She immediately tunes it to CNN and ignores my hissy fit. "Fuck, I hate people."

"Duly noted," he replies. "We'll get all the information together. When do you think you'll be in today?"

"I'm not sure. I haven't gotten back into my apartment yet. Early this afternoon at the-- oh, fuck."

Scully's jaw is practically in her lap, and after two seconds, I understand why. They're doing a report on the Citadel of the Last Days and their inane fucking rally. Of course the prophet refuses to speak, but someone's got him on tape. Five seconds, nothing conclusive, except that he's clearly Mulder.

It really does come in threes, doesn't it?

"Yes?"

"I have to call you back," I say. "Get shit together."

"Of course, sir."

"Don't call me sir," I reply, hanging up. Scully looks at me. Her hands are trembling. But her face is composed. I don't know what makes me more nervous.

"Did you know?" she asks, desperately, nerve-wrackingly silent.

"Not until I got that phone call."

"They're your people, aren't they?"

"They decided I didn't have enough balls," I reply.

"That's Mulder."

"No, it's not."

Her jaw sets stubbornly. "That's Mulder."

"Not anymore," I reply.

"Johnny, that's Mulder," she says, eyes narrowed to pinpoints. "Don't you dare tell me it's not him. Don't you dare."

This is not last night. The spell is broken, the coach is a pumpkin, and that glass slipper belongs to a lonely, psychotic woman who got involved in a world that was too much to her. I glare her down.

"What I'm telling you, Scully," I say in a perfectly reasonable tone of voice, "Is that the man on the screen is not him. He's a clone, or he's some sort of hybrid or-- fuck if I know. Maybe it is him. But he's working for the wrong goddamn side."

"The fact that you can even say that--"

"What?" I ask. "I'm just telling the truth. It may be selfish of me-- just a little-- but I think I'm on the right side here when I want to stop Mulder from starting the Apocalypse. Maybe I'm just being crazy, I don't know."

She looks away from me, and clutches her knees to her chest. Her lips are pressed together, and she looks like she would cry, but only if she were alone.

"You don't know so much," she says finally. "One of these days, you're going to be wrong when it matters, and I am going to laugh."

"Fine," I say. "But only when I'm wrong. And right now, I'm right. You know I'm right, don't you?"

Her head turns, and she looks at me wearily. It occurs to me that if we both survive, I should figure out a way to give Scully a very long vacation. Maybe I should consider taking one myself. She stares at me, eyes bright and stinging.

"I--" she murmurs. Her eyes flutter shut. "I believe you."

Thank God, I think to myself. To her, I merely say:

"Good. Now why don't you take a deep breath and a long shower, because until we catch this guy and take him down, we're not stopping."

And I don't know if I believe it, but she unfolds from her frightened position, letting the sheet drop away from her body as she stands up, cool and straight and unafraid. Before she walks away from me, she turns and looks over the s-curve of her spine right at me.

"God help you if you're lying to me," she whispers.

Then she strides into the bathroom and slams the door.

 

 


	3. Book Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "The means are right for taking,   
> (fade to grey)  
> Trying to be ruthless in the face of beauty--
> 
> In this matrix, it's plain to see--  
> It's either you or me.
> 
> Bruise-- pristine-- serene--
> 
> We were born to lose.
> 
> Cast a line with a velvet glove  
> Reading like an open book,  
> in the hands of love--
> 
> In this matrix, it's plain to see--  
> It's either you or me.
> 
> Bruise-- pristine-- serene--
> 
> We were born to lose..." Placebo, "Bruise Pristine"

**Scully:**

I've only had one dream since Mulder died. It doesn't feel like a dream at all. Sometimes I think that all the evil in the world has seeped into my subconscious and unfurled itself against the background of my dreams, lurking, waiting to sneak out into the daylight hours and do some serious damage.

Maybe it already has.

There's a voice speaking to me in my dreams with a monotone like a heavy bass drum, a man's voice. He tells me a lot of things, but I only understand one of them. Maybe it's my conscience trying to tell me something. I'm not sure what it means at all.

"You have a choice, Agent Scully," he tells me over and over. I don't know what to say to that. What choice do I have? What choices have I made that have made this life and this moment inevitable?

This is the moment: I'm striding through a crowd of religious lunatics in my favorite black trenchcoat. I've spent valuable minutes doing reconnaissance, trying to find the best way to move through them. I am on a mission. Not of mercy, but of a brutal, survivalist agenda. I am going to save the world.

Mulder loved this trenchcoat. He never said so aloud, but I could just tell the way I could always tell things about Mulder. Maybe that's what took us so long. We knew everything about each other but we couldn't say any of it. I wish it hadn't taken so long, but I think that if we had gotten together any earlier, I would have lost him that much earlier. I think that maybe we were doomed from the minute he told me he was the FBI's most unwanted. I don't believe in fate, though. Somehow, the choices we made created this moment, and this choice.

I have a choice, but I don't know what I'm going to do with it.

Moment: I keep walking, following the plan, following my route. The world's a blur, like a dream, full of sound and light and fury that signifies nothing and everything. The lunatics are waiting from the word from on high to transform them but they don't know what they're in for. I do. I do. I even see dead people. For example, I see a dead man on stage.

They did him up nice for me. He's as deadly as ever. There were times I wondered if Mulder was something I dreamed up, my perfect man. I'm still wondering. His hair is still dark, his eyes are still trying to talk to me, and he still stands like a damsel in distress, something I can save. I want to rescue him, kiss him out of this nightmare. But first someone has to do the same thing for me.

If anyone sees me in this sea of people, they obviously believe I'm not dangerous. They think I'm still living in a dream where I could just love him, follow the truth, and hide from the realities. But they may still think Johnny's not waiting to put the kibosh on their entire party. I don't have any certainties. In other words, no one knows anything, least of all me.

I have a choice. I am walking up to the stage, full of possibilities, pregnant with decision. This is the end of the world and I get to decide where we go from here. My mind is spinning and when I don't hear my dreams, I hear myself, like a broken record, quoting the Bible like I belong out here with the lunatics:

I came not to bring peace, but a sword--

This is the moment: I see him wearing a giant black turtleneck covering up the fact his throat was shot out. If I pulled the shirt away, would there be a hole? Would I look at him resurrected and watch it all crumple like a facade? That's what happens in my dream, the dream I swear I'm living out right now.

No, I remember this. The hole or the scar is there for their purposes. He was dead, now he lives, and not even my touch could bring him back to me this time, living or dead. He'll have to kiss lead-- a last gift from me to Mulder. Because my Mulder, the Mulder I am so sure is dead and gone, wouldn't want the world he's being used to create.

Please, God-- let that be true. I can't do this if that's not true.

In the dream I have the world is dripping with symbols as thick as blood. Lights appear in all the right places. Music plays, music I can't hear because the sound is all screwed up. The children's voices are singing and then they scream in horror and agony. My unconscious knows all the protocols of metaphor and symbolism. But I try to get past my nightmares because I'm not dreaming, unless life is one big dream-- and now is not the time for speculative philosophy.

I have plenty of desires, but only one dream. Just one. I want Mulder back. I want him to wake me from the dreams and the desires and the half-lit half-life I live and tell me we'll make it out all right. I want to kill Johnny, because I know that Mulder is dead. I want-- I wanted-- to feel her blood leak onto my hands, and I wanted to taste that blood and laugh. I want only impossible things, nothing simple, nothing like peace or happiness or something even remotely attainable, like avenging violence.

So now I'm here, unable to have either desire, cursed to live out my dream where I'm trapped between reality and madness, walking towards the stage where he's waiting for me and doesn't even know it. I love him. Maybe that's how I can stand it. I love him and I will do this for the memories I have of him, my lover, my partner, and my friend.

I walk onto the stage, easy to do in the chaos that teems around it, before it, around me, in me. No one's looking for me. No one wants to see me, or believe that I could do this. I've been underestimated again-- and that was exactly what I was counting on, what the world is counting on.

He turns his head. His eyes widen, but I'm not sure if that's recognition or fear.

I have a choice.

God, let it turn out all right, please God, let this be the right choice, don't let me do the wrong thing this time, let it be right, please God, give me a sign, give me a feeling, I'll do anything--

My hand fumbles in my jacket. This is my moment. This is my choice filling the moments between one heartbeat and the next. Can I really do what I think I should? Is this the right choice? The world is spinning with sound and light and the overwhelming rhythm of my breathing, and the staccato drumming of my heart as I consider, in split seconds, my choice-- and make it.

I have only one dream. Just one. It's there when I close my eyes, one that's still there when I open them.

Oh. God.

I think it's coming true.

* * *

 

**Johnny:**

I didn't think it was possible, but you can have coherent two phone conversations at once while maintaining three other conversations online. However, I think that it requires a crisis as deadly as a possible nuclear war, or in fact more deadly than a nuclear war, no sleep in over thirty-six hours, and fifteen cups of cheap, strong coffee during the last six of them.

The Mulder issue has become the most important thing in the world, although the person on the street doesn't know that. For the species to have any chance of survival, they can't know. There have been a few news blurbs about the rally/gathering of the Citadel of the Stupid Motherfuckers who Believe in Benevolent Aliens, but if anything, CNN holds them in even more contempt than I do. Of course, that's because CNN believes there are no such things as extraterrestrials and not for a truly substantial reason, like these dumb bastards are going to end the world. But I take what I can in circumstances like these.

Anyhow, ever since I got that phone call, it has been catnaps, coffee, and conferences up the ass for me and for Scully. That was somewhat surprising to me. Despite her impressive threats that first morning, she's taken an active role in preventing the Apocalypse. I guess that's what happens when a girl is raised to have social conscience, or an overwhelming sense of duty or whatever the hell makes you give a damn about others when other people would give up.

Oh, God. Sleep deprivation is making me babble when I need to present a calm, leadership-type aura. I sigh and start shuffling through the mountains of information about the conspiracy against me and my organization. Scully is over on the other side of the room, wearing her cute, geeky glasses, very seriously typing out something while chewing on the end of a pen in her dark purple satin pajamas.

The end of the world makes for strange bedfellows. Scully and I have been so busy that she's taken up residence in my house. How this happened, you couldn't explain to me with an illustrated textbook. But there's nothing sexual about it-- there's no time for that. We're too busy and I momentarily wonder if that's why it took a ridiculously long time for Mulder and Scully to get in bed. I didn't think they were that busy, but you never know. And-- but speculation really doesn't benefit the situation where I have two weeks to do some serious damage control or the Citadel of the Last Days of Disco (fucknuts, every last one of them) boogies their way through the country with alien virus.

I'm repeating myself and I've even started noticing that I sound like a broken motherfucking record. This is one of the more disappointing things about Armageddon. Nothing is really different about this crisis except for the shorter deadlines and bigger headaches surrounding it-- and the outcome if we fail. It's all a damned cliche, down to the fact that I can't find anything in the chaos, not even the preliminary list of who's dirty in this instance, even though I have looked at that list at least six times in the last hour.

I rub my forehead. If the end of the world is completely familiar, should I be afraid? Or is the fact it feels so natural something to worry about? I need to take a nap. But not before I get my hands on this file--

"Scully!" I shriek. "Do you have the reports about our Benedict Arnold buddies? The ones that identify them, I mean? I mean-- fuck. You know what I mean."

"I only have the same reports you've gone over six times already," Scully replies calmly. "You're getting a new batch in tomorrow morning, remember?"

"Tomorrow morning? Do these people understand the meaning of the words no fucking time?" I snap at her. "You understand that we can't move the deadline back on this one, right? No force on earth gets to prevent this one."

"And no force on earth can change the fact that once you stay up for seventy hours straight, you're legally insane," Scully replies calmly. "Have you considered switching to no-caff and getting some sleep? It's two in the morning, Johnny. Nothing's going to happen until at least eight. Get some sleep or you're not going to be able to marshal the forces of darkness and stop the rebels."

I give her a sidelong glance. "Are you making fun of me?"

"It's the end of the world. If you can't joke about that, what can you joke about?" she asks with a straight face, sitting down next to me. Fair enough. "I do think you should get some sleep. Sleep deprivation makes you sloppy, and you've told me repeatedly in the last week that we can't be sloppy in this operation."

I sigh. Scully is making a lot of common sense. Even with the coffee, I'm exhausted. I want to crawl under my covers, go to sleep, wake up, and find out this is a big joke. Better yet, I want to wake up and find out I've been in a coma for a month, a year, and none of this happened at all. At this point, I would be relieved to wake up dead.

Well, maybe not that relieved. But anything's better than staying awake anymore.

"Johnny?" she asks.

"I'm going," I reply. "Hold down the fort?"

"Ever since you made me your default second in command, I've been doing that anyway," she replies lightly.

I yawn and stand up, padding down the hall in bare feet. Then, just before I reach the bedroom door, a strange cold feeling works its way into my stomach. This entire end of the world business is awfully pat. It's not right that it should be like this, and for Scully, Scully who not only hates me, but finds the work I do absolutely detestable every way, for her to be my second in command all of the sudden--

Something is rotten in the apartment of Johnny Valmont.

I walk back to where Scully's sitting and working. Without warning, I put my hands around her throat.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Thinking," I say acidly. "Even delirious, I still have a mind up here. Isn't it awfully convenient that all of the sudden, you, Dr. "I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too," Scully, are so eager to assist me in my work? You know-- we still haven't found the guy who tipped our informant off, either. Did you have a little free time to talk to him while I was on my way home last week in a panic?"

She tries to tilt her head up and look at me.

"Johnny, you're paranoid," she says, pulling away from my grip on her neck. "I don't like working for you and I do still cherish the idea of taking revenge on you. But these are extraordinary circumstances."

"They don't feel that way," I insist, keeping a grip on her shoulders now, if not her neck. "I feel like this is any other crisis I've faced. There's a large vague conspiracy, a plan for aliens to take over the world, and I don't know who to trust in the midst of catastrophe. A Hollywood screenwriter could pump out something better than this during a two-martini lunch."

Scully pulls away from me and turns around to look me in the eye with a disbelieving expression. "You think I somehow dreamed this up? That I pulled together all of these resources to scare you?" she asks. She shakes her head dismissively. "Johnny, you're full of shit."

There's nothing to say to that, unless I sink to the level of childish comebacks and dead-end circumlocution. Either I believe her or I don't. After thirty-six hours of being awake and a week of knowing that this is no hoax, I can't blame her for being somewhat annoyed at me, though it doesn't reduce the threat of her being involved in the conspiracy.

"You're not in on this?" I ask inanely.

"If I were, do you think I'd tell you?" Scully replies. "Go to bed. You're incoherent and overcaffeinated. Hit the showers, take a hike, pick a catchphrase and turn it into a few hours of sleep."

"Nag, nag," I say wearily. "Can you really blame me for seeing conspirators over my shoulder?"

"Maybe not," she says, softening just enough to be beautiful. "But this operation doesn't have time for your personal paranoia any more than it has time for my grudge against you or my fear that the man up there is Mulder."

"Fair enough," I whisper, sorry I brought it up. I'd forgotten that we also hadn't had time for three funerals. Oh, God, this world is so fucked up. "Tomorrow, then."

"Go to bed already," she replies, turning her back on me.

After a moment of looking at the back of her head, I blink, shake my head, and turn to go to bed. I still feel the anxiety in the pit of my stomach, but I don't know what to do about that. I'll simply have to work with it as I desperately race against time to stop the forces of darkness from destroying life as we know it--

There's something so disturbing about knowing your life is a cosmic joke. Maybe that's the benefit of living a simple life-- instead of feeling tied to forces beyond your control, you can just exist without so much subtext. It would be nice. I don't know. I think such strange things when I'm tired and they all seem to make a twisted sort of sense.

"For the love of all that's fucking holy, Johnny!" Scully yells from the living room. "Open the bedroom door and Go. To. BED!"

Oops. I open the door, and when I see my bed, comfortingly messy and inviting, I wonder why I gave a damn about philosophy. Every answer I'm looking for is found in the depths of my pillows and the soft crispness of the bed linen. The ones I can stomach, at least.

I close the door behind me, and soon, I'm safely asleep, free from questions and trouble for a little while.

* * *

 

**Scully:**

I could use a little sleep but I could use this blessed, glorious moment of Johnny-less silence more. My life has been in tailspin this week. To be fair, so has Johnny's, but she's had a hell of a lot more practice and training for this sort of thing. Not to mention the fact she brought this upon herself by wanting to be in charge of the Consortium. I happened to be in the right hotel room at the right moment and now I'm part and parcel of Them, the Bad Guys, who are now all of the sudden the guardians of mankind. I know that's nonsense, but at this point, we don't have anyone else who could do the job.

I marvel at the level of self-deception I've maintained about myself. If someone had asked me two weeks ago if I would have done this, I would have laughed in his face. I was the bitch on wheels, with no earthly desire except the utter destruction of Johnny Valmont. If that same person had asked eight days ago, I would have said the same thing.

What a joke that turned out to be. Among many other things I've discovered I cannot escape, I cannot escape who I am. And it happens that I have a deep sense of responsibility for the world, even when I say I don't care. My parents, my friends, my life have instilled a sense of duty that catches me at the most awkward moments. More than that, I know this is the right thing to do. Mulder would have--

I don't live my life by Mulder's moral compass. That's for damn sure. But in this affair, I find myself rationalizing everything through his philosophy. This is his world, the ultimate flowering of all of his prophecies and fears and paranoia, the nightmare he could always envision in the back of his mind. He understood it and I denied it for so long that it feels wrong to believe in conspiracies and extraterrestrials. I should have never been the one who did any of this helping Johnny, infiltrating the Syndicate, discovering all these secrets business. In some way, I feel like I'm living out a life that rightfully belonged to Mulder. But he's dead, or he's worse than dead, and I am not.

And I wonder as I wander through my disorganized thoughts why they chose him in particular to come back. There is nothing so famous or spectacular about Mulder that he makes a better prophet than any other abductee. If it had been anyone else, I wouldn't allow myself a moment of doubt until this was over, however it turned out. I would throw myself into the work. I could be Johnny's second in command and it wouldn't faze me one bit. For as long as this situation exists, I can pretend that I wouldn't spit on Johnny if she were on fire.

But this uncertainty, this worry that I'm doing the wrong thing, that I'm being duped again is distracting me. I can't put my whole heart into something I'm not sure about. My old habit of second-guessing everything out of spite is also distracting me. I'm forcing myself to do what I know is the right thing, while the pit of my stomach growls angrily in protest. I've seen the evidence, I've weighed the evidence, and I've made the proper scientific judgement. My stomach doesn't care. I saw Mulder and betraying him, even if he is a zombie drone working for the wrong people, makes me sick.

How can I give up the person who's meant the most to me for the person I hate more than anything?

I click on the television while shuffling meaninglessly through papers. The situation is very simple, which is probably why Johnny doesn't like it. Mulder's group with the absurd name is holding a rally on the Mall in fifteen days. During this rally, Mulder is going to publicly link his name to his role as Prophet of the Aliens or whatever he does. While his flock is marveling at his "resurrection" story, non-human sentient agents (Johnny's term for the shape-shifting aliens) will move through the crowd, infecting them with the alien retrovirus.

According to the current projections, within two weeks, sixty percent of the American population will be infected at a mortality rate of over ninety-five percent. By this point, the rebellious Syndicate forces will be in charge of the government, making sure the other forty percent of Americans (as well as all those other pesky countries) get sick. After that, as one of Johnny's lieutenants said, "Sayonara, folks, the fat lady sang and now she's hatching a lovely pair of lizardy twins from her corpse."

It's a simple plan, really. It may still succeed because of the central issue involved here-- the alien virus and the weakness of our vaccine. We don't have a cure. The vaccine is not at an acceptable level of effectiveness. It's touch and go if we have to try to survive a viral epidemic, though we have every medical person in the country forcing vaccinations on people. However, nipping this in the bud is similarly uncertain. It's mostly contingent on us rounding up the non-human sentient agents before they can let a plague loose, make sure there's no plan B, and killing Mulder in the process. But where they can be simple, we have to be complicated.

And where on this side I have Johnny and a group of sinister thugs and the intellectual knowledge I'm right, I still don't feel right. I feel like my father would look down on me for choosing to help someone like Johnny over Mulder. I rest my head on my hand, and stare down at my feet. What am I doing? What the hell am I doing?

A picture falls out of the mess. It's of a man, an average middle-aged man, after his viscera have been ripped apart by a newborn non-human being. His face is empty, staring up at nothingness. Maybe this is a message from God. I pick up the picture and put it back into the mess.

I look up at the television, which is still tuned to CNN-- we haven't changed the channel since last week sometime. The unfortunate guy who covers the graveyard shift is talking about the stock market. Or maybe it's international news. I don't pay him any attention until I hear the phrase millennial fear, and then my attention is back to one hundred percent.

"Recent reports have come in that the so-called Prophet of the Citadel of the Last Days, a millennial cult with a belief in extraterrestrials, is an ex-government agent," he says. "Government agencies will not confirm this report, and no comment is forthcoming."

I look at the screen, as the same blurry, dark footage of Mulder plays onscreen for the hundredth time. He's not doing anything special. He's passing a file to a member of his cult. But I stare at him, trying to discern any clue about what's going on behind his eyes, which look the same as ever.

How on earth did this happen? How did Mulder and I end up on different sides? How-- but before I can think too much about the matter, the "office" phone rings, and I dive for it, scattering paperwork like snowflakes. Johnny doesn't need to wake up. I don't think I could handle her right now, either.

"Hello?" I ask into the receiver breathlessly.

"Dr. Scully?" someone asks. "I didn't expect you to answer."

"Johnny is taking a short break," I reply laconically.

"I needed to speak with you anyway," the someone replies. "This is a friend."

"I need friends like I need a hole in the head," I reply.

There's a pause on the other end of the line. "One of the head doctors in your lab is working for us. He's got a lead on a dramatically more effective version of the vaccine, and he's been suppressing evidence of a possible cure."

"And I'm supposed to believe you because you call up and tell me so?" I ask.

"Believe what you want, but you have access to the labs in a way Johnny wouldn't," he says. "Look, I've got to go. The guy's name is Nicholas Roegis. His work is going to help you out more than anyone else's."

"What-- I--"

Click.

From my position on the floor, I realized I changed the channel in my dash for the phone. Instead of news of Mulder, I'm seeing a badly garbled view of someone's bare breast. I fumble around for the remote and turn off the television. I should probably wake Johnny up, but I really don't want to.

I pick up the phone instead and dial the lab I used to work at. Someone answers groggily.

"Hello?"

I recognize the voice as one of the lab assistants I knew very well. I decide that I can trust him.

"This is Dana Scully."

There's a quick respectful pause.

"Yes, ma'am?" he says more crisply.

"I need to come down to the labs. Could we make sure no one knows about that until I'm there?" I ask.

"Of course," he replies.

"Thank you. I should be there shortly," I reply and hang up. I think about waking Johnny up. I decide against it as I get my coat and slip it on. She may not like this, but we're waging a war here. It's not about egos or power trips. Johnny needs to get some sleep and I need to follow up on a tip. It makes perfect sense I go to the labs anyway.

As I tiptoe outside and hail a cab, I get a momentary shudder when I realize I'm not just taking orders, I'm taking initiative in this game. If the man that the news channels call the Prophet is my Fox Mulder-- well, it didn't even take thirty pieces of silver for me to turn on him. But I'm not betraying Mulder, because that man is not Mulder and even if he is-- he's trying to do something deplorable.

The pain back in the pit of my stomach, I get into a cab and drive away, trying to stop the doubts and disbelief in my head. Now is not the time to break down. I have to stop worrying about what I can't change and be a scientist. I need to be objective. I need to follow a logical plan.

Yeah. Sure. I stare out the window of the cab. If only it were that easy.

* * *

 

**Johnny:**

According to my watch, it is 0747 Eastern Standard Time. I had asked that my entire emergency staff be in my office at 0745 this morning and shockingly, four people are late. I tap my watch. Scully looks at me and rolls her eyes.

"Maybe the elevator was slow," she says.

"They should have anticipated that," I reply. "I would have."

"You're a pain in the ass," she snaps.

"You're a bigger pain in the ass," I reply. She snorts derisively, and everyone else looks uncomfortable. Obviously, they don't want to hear their bosses banter.

Finally, the two slowpokes drag their asses into the office, looking white as sheets. Scully gives me a look and I refrain from chewing them out. Instead I launch into my presentation.

"Let's begin, shall we?" I ask crisply. "The Citadel of the Last Days plans to march on Washington Mall and hold their rally in seven days, five hours, and--" I check my watch-- "Eleven minutes."

The latecomers look down. Scully rolls her eyes and sneers at me.

"Now, since our anonymous mole on the inside tipped Dr. Scully off to the defection of Dr. Roegis, we have discovered that our most effective vaccine against the viral pathogen has a success rate of about seventy to eighty percent. While this only improves upon our previous vaccine by ten percent, the difference is this vaccine seems--"

I stutter. There are days I wish I were a scientist, not a lawyer. Scully takes up the slack. "This vaccine seems optimized to be improved upon. My people in the labs are confident they can make an eighty-five percent effective vaccine by the day of the rally. We currently have operatives spreading the vaccine by any means possible. Two days before the rally we intend to add it to public water supplies in as large a radius as possible."

I smile at her and she gives me a smug, coy look. Ever since Scully decided she didn't need me ordering her about to "fight the future," she's been playing a little game of oneupsmanship with me. It's extremely sexy and if we had time, I'd one-up her. But with about two dozen of the most important people on earth staring at me, it's better not to go there.

"Have you identified the insider?" my old friend Nico asks. Nico is an Aleutian-Russian guy. He's been an assassin since he was ten. We met while I was vacationing with English Jake in Istanbul. He taught me how to break someone's leg with my bare hands and how to curse in Russian, Aleut, Turkish, and Arabic. We're fond of each other. But he's a skeptical son of a bitch who's sure I'm fucking this operation up somehow.

"Not as of yet. He most certainly does not want to be found," I say.

"Are you sure he's not leading you on a wild goose chase?" Nico insists. "Johanna--"

"Nico," I say calmly. "Of course we've considered that possibility. We're prepared for it. But all of the conspirators we've been able to interrogate have confirmed his account of events."

This isn't enough for Nico. He wants everything nailed to the floor, pinpointed. It's a drag. Then again, that's why I wanted him at this meeting. Not even Dana Scully at her pigheaded ice queen bitch whore worst could be more nitpicky than Nico.

"Speaking of able to interrogate," he continues. "Why the fuck aren't you just lining these motherfuckers up against a wall and--" he makes the universal suggestion of a gun with his hand and mimes blowing them away one by one: bam bam bam bam bam. "And for fuck's sake, Johanna, didn't you already kill Fox Mulder? Doesn't the shit-faced cockmaster know how to stay dead?"

Scully digs her nails into the lacquered tabletop, breathing noisily.

"Watch your filthy fucking mouth, Nico," I reply. "There's a reason I'm not choosing the simple and direct route. Chaos is not beneficial to us in this matter. Besides, to attack the non-humans and their allies would be viewed negatively by certain forces."

"Those cocksucking--"

"Nico," I say, very dispassionate. "We haven't yet severed connections with those parties you're about to slander. I don't want to have to do it, not until it's absolutely necessary. Why do you think we're sneaking around, Nico? I want this party to go off with a bang, not a whimper."

He looks at me silently, turning and twisting the idea in his mind. Scully, unaware of this, launches into her next lecture about things I'm sure the science people appreciate. It all goes right over my head except for the conclusion: vaccine good, cure shaky. Apparently viral sentience can mutate really fucking fast and that makes it hard to kill. Nico is staring at me, considering my plan. Finally, after Scully has convinced everyone around that yes, it is necessary that we ride our scientists hard and put 'em away wet, he looks at her and then at me. He smiles and winks at me.

"Mister Nico," Scully says. "What do you think?"

"I think Johanna has great taste, as always," he says casually. "I also think that the plan is unnatural, dangerous, and if I could think of a better way, I would. But Johanna is smarter than most of us. This is an excellent plan under the circumstances. You two work very well together."

She blushes, or perhaps she flushes. I can't read if the expression on her face is embarrassment or anger.

"Nico," I say lightly.

"It's the truth," he replies. "As much as I'd like to pump a few hundred rounds into those motherfucking pigs who betrayed their own species, your way is much better. That way we'll kill 'em all, lose a few of our own, and God can sort out the rest. But Johanna?"

"Yes?"

"Cut Fox Mulder's head off this time, stuff garlic in his mouth, stake him through the heart, whatever you need to do. But keep him dead."

I sneer at him, discreetly flipping him off. He looks at me quizzically. Fair enough. I've told Nico on several occasions I wanted to use Mulder's balls to play pool. It doesn't make sense for me to suddenly defend him. I discreetly indicate Scully and grimace while she's not looking. His eyes widen and he makes a gesture I assume is asking if they fucked. I nod quickly. He grimaces.

"I have a small suggestion," someone says. I look over. It's Rahib, our Tunisian representative. "If you intend to kill Fox Mulder, you should find someone close to the man in his former life. I think our mutual enemy will be looking for our people. Sir, I had heard it rumored you seduced his former partner. I suggest that perhaps you use your influence with him and have him do the job. They would not be expecting--"

Scully breaks her water glass. Everyone stares.

"Okay," I say, trying to sound as cool and calm as I possibly can. "Ten minute break, people. I'll take care of it."

They vacate the room. Scully hisses at me when I try to get near her.

"You have glass in your hand."

"If you think I'll kill him, you're out of your fucking mind."

"Did I suggest it?" I ask. "Scully, you don't think I'm a complete fucking moron, do you?"

She looks down at her hand, grimacing. "No. But you're thinking about it."

Again, fair enough. Rahib, asshole misogynist slimeball though he may be, has a very good point. They're going to be expecting one of my slick boys to cap Mulder. They'll probably have three or four of my subverted assassins to prevent that. But if someone they didn't expect, like Scully--

Forget it. I sit down next to her and start picking the three large shards of glass out of her hand. Alex did this on average of once a month. There was always goddamn blood in our garbage. The neighbors probably thought we got off on it. In fact, I find blood sports to be rather juvenile. Violence is definitely sexy, but there are much more subtle ways to inflict violence on a person than breaking the skin.

"Johnny?"

"They'd never think you'd do it," I say softly. "You're a big smudge Mulder fucked. Nobody would think of it."

"You fucking bitch," she growls, pulling her hand away roughly. "If you thought I would, you'd order me to do it, wouldn't you?"

"I'm done ordering you around. You're a free agent in this game," I say. "You choose what you want to do. After all, I have more than one assassin. Anything you do for me or with me from this point on is all your own free will."

She glowers at me, eyes gleaming with tears. Then she looks down at the huge shard of glass in her palm and pulls it out, leaving the bloody fragment on the conference table. She stares at me, her gaze burning my skin with its intensity.

"How does it feel to be soulless?" she finally whispers.

"Something like the last time we had sex," I reply, getting up from the table and walking over to the window. "It could be worse. Is that what you're really asking me, though?"

"Are you asking me if I'll kill him?" Scully asks.

"I already asked you," I say, looking out the window. I check my watch. "Seven days, four hours, and forty-one minutes."

"Johnny, you can't ask me to do this."

"I could. I did. You can say no. I won't mind if you say no."

"You fucking bitch!" she shouts at me. "You-- you--"

"Make a decision," I say. "You have a choice, Dana. Yes or no?"

She walks up to me, looking darkly into my eyes. Her lips are trembling and her entire frame is shaking with rage and fear and horror. With one smooth gesture, she slaps me across the face.

"I hate you," Dana whispers.

"Yes or no?"

She opens her mouth to answer. I wait.

* * *

 

**Spender:**

It's all breaking down. She-- Dana Scully or Johnny Valmont or an unholy amalgamation of them both-- is doing this to me. She's coming over me, making me nervous when I can't be nervous. I can't have any weaknesses for tomorrow, but she's making me weak.

On second thought, that could just be the music. I growl at the tape player. I found it in the stereo I stole and unfortunately for me, none of the radio stations come in. Instead I have this mournful, sad sack tape clearly made by a true adolescent. No matter how many times I play it over and over, it doesn't get any better, either.

"Alcoholic kind of mood, lose my clothes, lose the lube--" a whiny androgynous voice sings, right on cue. I wish I could turn the damn thing off, but my temporary neighbors are very noisily going at it. Personally, I don't like thinking of two huge men having sex. Call me crazy, but it does nothing for me. "So narcotic, out of sight-- what a gas, what a beautiful ass--"

I'd rather think of Johnny and Scully, together, separate-- I don't care. Any heterosexual man with a pulse would be interested in either of them and the idea of the two of them is enough to drive me crazy tonight. It could, after all, be the last night of my life. Why not fantasize a little?

"Spinning me around, she's coming over me--" the whiny voice continues. I could see that. I can almost feel Johnny's lips on my earlobe.

"Cuz nobody loves you, it's true," she whispers, wrapping her legs around me from behind. "Not like we do--"

I can't allow myself to be distracted. Beautiful or not, desirable or not, these two are nothing except forbidden fruit, pipe dreams, fantasies to jerk off to. This is all only a dream, a half-realized desire, a hallucination. Nothing is real except for tomorrow and what I have to do then. The rest of it is an illusion.

Scully is smiling at me. She shouldn't be smiling at me. She shouldn't be here. She's not wearing any clothing. My God, she is a real redhead, too. She runs her tongue over her bruised, rosy lips and smiles again.

"Take a ride, take a shot now," she tells me. I think I'm hallucinating. She sounds like the woman singing on the tape, a torch singer draped all in black, like Johnny is now, slinking up next to her in a black beaded dress, eyes glowing and lips vibrant with wine-red lipstick.

I go over to the briefcase with my gun. I have to stop hallucinating and get back to reality. I flip the locks open as Johnny presses her lips against Scully's mouth, forcing it open with her tongue. They kiss as I lift the lid of the case, obscuring their actions from view. I pick up the gun and close the briefcase.

Fox Mulder is standing there, trying to talk to me. I can't hear him, though, and I slowly realize there's a gaping hole where his larynx should be. Johnny pulls away from Scully long enough to chuckle obscenely.

"Cuz nobody loves me, it's true," Scully tells her. Or maybe she's telling Mulder, I don't know. "Not like you do--"

I blink in horror. When Johnny killed Mulder, she not only took his life, she took his voice. Men without voiceboxes don't rat you out. Dead men tell no tales. After a moment of morbid, leering triumph, Johnny returns to Scully, who has been watching us listlessly.

"I didn't know!" I tell Mulder, who is still trying to tell me something. "I didn't have a choice. Not in any of it. I didn't want this to happen. I just have to do it."

Scully moans from across the room. I try to look past Mulder, but then I see Alex Krycek who's in the way, bleeding on the floor from a wound in his groin, eyes empty and blank. He doesn't try to speak. He sneers at me slowly and then looks away at Johnny. I understand it then. He loved her. In that look they share, I know just how very much they loved each other. I can't understand why, but his gaze when he looks at her is adoring, practically idolatrous.

Johnny is again distracted from Scully. She looks at Alex and blows him a kiss, a salute of sorts. He reciprocates the gesture and I'm breathless, staring at this unreal tableau.

"Cara mia," she says ironically.

"Mi amore," he replies in a voice that is cobweb and shadow. Scully isn't singing, but she's moaning and it's driving me out of my mind. Though considering no one is in the room except for me, I'm not sure I'm not already delirious. Johnny turns back to her and I remember what's real. The gun in my hand is real. The music is real. I am near enough to being real. They don't exist.

I sit down in a rickety chair, take out a cloth, and begin to oil the motherfucker. It doesn't need it, but I can't stand to keep looking up and seeing ghosts. I try to get them out of my head, but Scully keeps ruining it by moaning. I finally get tired of rubbing the gun and look for the bullets for the thing.

Six chambers, six bullets. I look at them and imagine the sound as they burst out of the gun into someone's body. That's real. I have to live in the real world because tomorrow's the big day. Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life and the last day of the rest of everyone else's life.

Scully's moaning reaches a sobbing pitch and I put the gun down on the splintering, dusty table that's served as a desk for me. I push past Mulder and Krycek, who seem content to watch, but I still can't get to Johnny and Scully because standing before me, as solid as anything I could imagine (or perhaps I'm giving him psychological weight) is my father.

"It's all breaking down, Jeffrey," he says.

"You're not real! You're dead!" I say, pushed to the point of childish hysterics. "Why are you here? Why are any of you here?"

"It's all breaking down, Jeffrey," he repeats.

"Get away from me," I say. "You were my father and you didn't give a damn how far I fell. Once I failed you, you could have cared less whether I lived or died. I wasn't Mulder and I wasn't Johnny and I wasn't good enough."

Someone laughs. I think it's Krycek. I push away from my father, past all three men who lost to Johnny and found themselves dead because of it, to where Scully is pinned against the wall, swallowed up in Johnny's embrace.

"Listen!" I call to them. They ignore me. "Knock it off."

They still don't listen. Johnny's head is buried in Scully's shoulder and they could care less what sort of show they're presenting to the world. The world belongs to the two of them anyway and it's not enough. They have to have each other along with it.

"Hey, Johnny!" I cry, trying to get her attention. I deserve her attention, dammit. She's a figment of my imagination. "You know it was me, right? I'm the one who saved your ass this time. I called the guy. I called Scully. I tipped you off. If it weren't for me--"

She's not listening to me. Damn her. She should listen to me. I've done so much for her. Instead, she's ignoring me as she keeps doing whatever she's doing to Scully. I realize I'm holding the gun. That disturbs me. My grip on reality has never been this sketchy before. I haven't had much to drink and there's no other reason for me to be seeing all these ghosts and illusions. I'm cracking up underneath the strain.

"Johnny!" I scream at her. "Are you listening to me?"

"Johnny!" Scully cries in counterpoint. Her head is tilted back, her mouth swollen with desire, eyes rolled back. Of course Johnny's not listening to me. She's not the real Johnny. She is me. I wouldn't listen if I had Dana Scully up against a wall, either.

I put the gun up against my left temple. "Go away," I whisper, closing my eyes tight. "Just go away. I don't want you here."

The gun is very cold. If I were a man and not a mouse, I would pull the trigger and end the nightmares. If I weren't afraid of living, I wouldn't be afraid to die tonight. The metal against my skin feels so good. If only I could have an accident.

Something-- someone-- brushes against my lips. "Oh, Jeffrey," a woman whispers to me. "But you do want me here."

I keep the gun pressed against my head. "You're not here."

"I have a story," she whispers, wrapping her arms around me. "Old story, no twist, good point. Two monks belong to an order where they don't touch women and all that good stuff. There's a woman by a river. She's lame, but she needs to cross the river. One of the monks carries her over the river. The monks keep going on their walk. Other monk is raging at the first brother. How could you do it, he says. You broke our rules. You touched a woman. First monk looks at the guy. Brother, he says, I left that woman back at the river. Why are you still carrying her?"

I told myself the story, I think to myself. When I open my eyes, her arms won't be around my neck. Her breasts won't be pressed up against me. Her pelvis won't be thrusting against mine. I just need to leave her back at the river and open my eyes.

One-- two-- three-- open.

No one's there. I sigh, a long, shuddery sound. No one's there, not Mulder, not Krycek, not Scully, not my father, and not Johnny.

"Good boy," I hear the same voice tell me. I spin around, looking for her. But she's not there. Of course. I made them all up, to distract me from the reality of tomorrow and the reality of today and the whining wheeze of the tape player as the song bursts into frenetic signification:

"You come across impure-- I didn't mean it-- you're goddamn immature-- I didn't mean it-- you act so insecure-- I didn't mean it-- you hate me now, I'm sure-- I didn't mean it--"

* * *

 

**Scully:**

0630, Eastern Standard Time. It's dark, very dark, pre-dawn on this day of days. Johnny, with her usual militant precision, has her alarm clock sitting on the nightstand, beeping the signal. Time to get up. No more sleep. The alarm clock has murdered sleep.

The sheets are rough, cheap fiber. When the lights are on, they're a dingy off-white with the faintest smell of bleach and sex. The sliver of light that seeps in from the curtains is abrasive, the color of bad neon. A faint hum of traffic sweeps by.

"You awake?" she asks, no hint of sleep in her voice. Knowing her, she's been awake for an hour.

"Yeah."

"Dark, isn't it?"

"Happens in the late fall. I still get surprised," I say in a flat voice, a meaningless voice.

"Had a dream last night," she replies in the same flat tone. "I dreamed about Alex, actually. I miss him."

"Maybe you shouldn't have killed him."

"Maybe. In the dream, he was so beautiful. He told me that he loved me, then he kissed me, then he killed me," she whispers and her voice tingles with awe. "It was a beautiful kiss. Did you dream?"

"I only have one dream."

"Hmm," she murmurs. "World without end, amen. I get the shower first."

"Johnny," I say before her hand can slither out and flick on the light. "We have a little time."

"Time for what?"

My laughter sounds almost pretty in the darkness. "Time," I repeat. "Time enough for you and time enough for me."

0752 Eastern Standard Time. Whoever said Johnny would stop sex mid- orgasm before she'd be late lied.

We gather in a conference room in a nondescript hotel. It's not at all glamorous. It doesn't need to be. The business travelers ignore us, the tourists gawk momentarily and pass on, and once the doors to our conference room are shut, two or three unobtrusive men make sure no one is listening to our talks.

The world is a spectacle today. Everyone looks so somber and ridiculous as they drink coffee and whisper together. Their faces are blank, nondescript. I wonder what they're thinking.

Then I notice everyone is staring at me when they think I'm not looking. I don't know why, but I just know it's for a reason I won't like. Either they realize I made Johnny late or they know what my role in today's circus is going to be. Either way, I don't need them to stare at me.

"All right, people," Johnny snaps, unamused by the spectacle. "I know I'm late. You know I'm late. That means we don't have any time to talk about me being late. Let's get down to business, because we have five hours, seven minutes, twenty-eight seconds to go."

1029 Eastern Standard Time. We're in one of the side conference rooms, having a frivolous discussion in world-saving terms, but I find it to be an important one personally. Besides, it's less stressful than the constant reports from our agents already in the field.

"This is a ridiculous idea, Johnny," I growl at her.

"Of course it's ridiculous!" she replies. "That's why it's going to work. Would you believe it if you were told a woman in black leather was stomping across the Mall like Tina Turner in Mad Max?"

"No, because it's crazy! There are going to be news crews! Expecting it or not, I'm going to stick out like a sore thumb. Why can't I just wear this?" I ask, gesturing at my own nondescript jeans-and-blouse outfit.

"Trust me, there's going to be enough going on that they won't notice," Johnny replies. "We've got this party rigged pretty goddamn fucking hearty."

"I won't do it."

"Humor me, Scully," she says. "Who's the expert?"

"It's insane."

"Who was it who did a stint as a professional assassin again?"

"You are such a bitch," I say, relenting. "You're a lunatic. But I suppose I'll give in to the voice of experience."

Johnny grins, lips pulled back in an imitation leer. "I always did want to see you all in leather," she drawls. Then she checks her watch and her leer turns into a pleased little grin. "That took less time than I thought it would."

"You had that on your private schedule?" I ask. "That's so--"

"Anal," she says. "I know, I know. Now go put the damn thing on."

I take the catsuit. "If I can't move in this, I'm wearing jeans."

She smirks at me. "Trust me. It moves."

I don't reply as I stalk off to another side conference room. I can't believe how I'm letting her run this show. You'd think the end of the world was her own personal debut. I suppose in a way, it is her professional debut, the end of the world as managed by Johnny Valmont. Still, I should have a little personal integrity.

1118 Eastern Standard Time. We're in a corner of the main room again, and the leather catsuit doesn't feel right. And if people were staring before--

"Do you have the logistics memorized?" Johnny asks, making absolutely no sense as she paces back and forth in front of me. "Do you remember the locations on the map? Do you--"

I lift my hand to stop her pacing and chattering. "Do you want me to run over what I'm going to do again?" I ask wryly. "Seeing as we're in a holding pattern right now. I guess we didn't need to get up at six thirty after all, did we?"

"It never hurts to be prepared," she replies, tapping her foot. Sometimes I wish Johnny smoked. The entire mechanism of smoking might slow her down while she's agitated. Instead, she paces and fidgets and breathes very loudly. "Shit, I wish I'd brought a book."

"Dante's Inferno?" I ask. She snorts.

"Go over the thing again, Scully," she says sardonically. I sigh and start reciting the plan all over again, from the moment we're sitting in a black sedan at 1215 to the projected successful end, where I re- enter said black sedan and take a trip to clean up at 1309. It seems frightening that less than an hour before I put this entire thing into action, I'm bored enough to watch television and make small talk.

When I stop speaking, Johnny nods. "Okay," she says. "I think we've got it down. Want something to eat before we go?"

1213 Eastern Standard Time. I'm sitting in a black sedan, with some poor son of a bitch sitting behind the wheel and Johnny sitting next to me in the backseat. She's put her game face on and she looks blank, lost in her own world where Krycek still kisses her good morning and she just has to pull a few strings for the world to turn on its axis.

"What time is it?" I ask.

"We have a minute," she says, her face soft with emotion. "Well, shit. I guess here we go."

"Don't get sentimental on me," I reply. "Remember, I still hate you and I'm not doing this for you."

"Good for you," she says, flipping open her briefcase and handing me a gun. "I killed my first man with this. It's good luck."

"Are you going to recite poetry for the occasion?" I ask, trying not to feel sympathy for Johnny. God damn her, she's good at chiseling a small space for herself.

"I could," she says as I take the gun from her. "I have a few lines of Swinburne that fit the occasion."

I open the car door and prepare to get out. "Spit it out so I can do this, Johnny," I tell her.

"All right," she says, her face taking on a sullen, irritated cast. "Think about this as you go bounding out to save the world in a blaze of homicidal glory. We are not sure of sorrow, and joy was never sure; today will die tomorrow; time stoops to no man's lure; and love, grown faint and fretful, with lips but half regretful sighs, and with eyes forgetful weeps that no love endure."

I look at her with an expression I hope is full of bravado. "See you at 1309, Johnny," I tell her, slipping the gun into my waist holster and pulling the trenchcoat around me tight. "Hope you don't get dead."

"Ditto," she tells me as I get out of the car, slam the door, and walk away. Then I forget her. This may be her production, but this is my choice. After I do this, I can walk away from this business forever. With Mulder dead and Johnny neutralized, I won't have any more fathers waiting to tell me what to do.

As I become part of the mob that quickly surrounds me, I realize that maybe I got revenge on Johnny after all. Whether I say another word to her or not, she'll be waiting for me forever. I don't know if that comforts me, but I try not to think about it as I look down at my watch.

1217 Eastern Standard Time. Let's get this party started.

* * *

 

**Johnny:**

I don't know when I wake up. Early, I suppose. I have a nervous tic that wakes me an hour before I have to be awake sometimes. This time, I hope it's less. I wouldn't mind falling back to sleep. I was having a good dream. Alex was there. He was dancing with me in my bedroom. It was strange. We didn't dance while he was alive. But whenever I dream of him-- boom. Dancing.

Scully rustles a little in her sleep, pulling away from me. I don't know why she decided to muscle under my covers. She seemed just fine with her bed when I fell asleep. But now she's burrowed under the blankets on the side of the bed I wasn't using.

Alex kissed me, in my dream. His lips were warm, sliding over me like honey, slow and sweet. I loved him. I did. I wrapped my arms around him and we danced, tied up in each other. I didn't even flinch when he jabbed the .45 into my side and pulled the trigger because in my dream, that was the right way to go.

I stare up at the black ceiling. I can't see anything. I can hear everything-- the traffic, the sound of Scully's breathing, the ticking of my watch on the bedside table. I can't sleep now. So I just think of different ephemeral things, waiting for the alarm to go off. When it does, I hear her move, just a little.

"You awake?" I ask.

"Yeah," she whispers, running her fingers up my arm. I shiver.

"Dark, isn't it?"

"It happens," she murmurs, kissing my earlobe. "It's that time of year. Sometimes I'm surprised, too."

"I had a dream," I tell her, trying to stay calm despite her onslaught. "About Alex. I'd forgotten I missed him."

"Maybe you shouldn't have killed him," she says, moving closer and closer to me. I ignore her little comment.

"It was so beautiful. We were dancing. He told me he loved me. He kissed me. And then he killed me," I tell her as greedy little hands pull the sheet away from my body. "Did you dream last night?"

"I only have one dream," she tells me, climbing atop me.

"World without end, amen," I reply, sliding my hand down her waist. I understand, of course. If today is the last day-- we look for what little comforts we can steal wherever we can. I understand her too well and it's killing me. "I get the shower first."

"Johnny," she whispers, bending down to kiss me. "We have so little time."

"Time for what?" I tease, feeling warm even though I know how empty this gesture is. She laughs at me. It's a brutal, cold laugh, revealing how well she understands this.

"Time," she whispers. "Time enough for you. And time enough for Me."

I pull her close to me again, silencing her with a kiss. We strip to skin fast enough and before I can stop to think about my timetable, we're wrapped around each other, trying to keep time from moving forward.

We're late to the meeting. Everyone pretends not to be surprised, but I feel their eyes on me like spotlights. It's unnerving to be under so much scrutiny at this point in the game. I glance at my watch. Late or not, it's time to begin.

"All right, people, I know I'm late. You know I'm late. That means we don't have any time to talk about me being late. Let's get down to business," I tell everyone. At that moment, I feel relaxed. I may be a little off-schedule, but so far the entire world is following my plan. It seems like a good omen, and I smile a little. We may get out of this alive after all.

The morning progresses according to plan and I feel strangely euphoric as it slips. I don't even really have to think as I listen to report after report fitting the frameworks I projected. I make orders I decided on days ago, sip insipidly good Starbucks lattes, and scream like a maniac once in a while because it's expected. But underneath that facade, that image of me I'm starting to despise, I'm thinking ahead.

I think I'm tired of this. More accurately-- what's left? This is the greatest triumph I can imagine in my career. I saved the world. Everything else will be an anti-climax, a slower battle I don't think I'm suited for. I live life in a rush. The challenge, the crisis, the motherfucking huge mess no one else could look at without having a nervous breakdown-- it energizes me. It lifts me off the ground.

"Johanna," someone calls, breaking my reverie. I look up. It's Nico.

"I'm here."

"Good," he says emphatically. "You can't leave us yet."

"What am I going to do, Nico?" I ask him, smiling slightly.

"You're going to win, Johanna," he says. "Then life will go back to normal."

I make a face. "Sounds like a dream come true," I tell him.

"What?" he says. "You're not having any difficulties-- not now?"

"I'm fine," I say. "I'm just-- Nico, what's left after this? I don't have the patience for this anymore."

He laughs. "You're such a child," he tells me. "You live and die for the rush and leave the mess for someone else to clean up. Are you afraid you're finally going to have to grow up?"

"Fuck off, Nico."

He laughs again. "A regular Peter Pan," he teases. "Don't worry. Once you get older, it won't bother you so much. Of course, you look like the sort of leader who cries when there are no new worlds to conquer."

"How the hell did you get so smart, killing people for a living?"

"Time does it to all of us, Johnny Pan," he replies. "Go. Do something useful. You're making us all nervous, sitting there and staring into space. Go throw that gorgeous redheaded madwoman against a wall and fuck her brains out, anything."

I make a small, ashamed grimace. "It's that obvious?"

"I know you," he says. "You should have never gotten within ten feet of her. Therefore, you adore her."

I stick my tongue out at him. "You're going to pay for that, Nico."

"Go on, do something," he says. I do what he says. I remember I have that leather outfit I want to stick on Scully. She's going to be difficult about it.

But it turns out that Scully takes less finessing than usual. In fact, her only objections are eminently practical ones. I get her past that and it seems like no time at all before we're sitting together, two minutes until the time scheduled for her to take off and find "Mulder" so she can blow his motherfucking head off. She's antsy about it. I can tell she has her doubts and she hopes getting out of this morning's peculiar inertia can overcome them.

"What time is it?" she demands. I check my watch.

"We have a minute," I tell her. Then I look at her and smile ruefully. "Well, shit. Here we go."

"Don't get sentimental on me," she snarls. "I still hate you. I'm not doing this for you."

"Good for you," I tell her. I open the suitcase where I have my gun. I offer it to her. "Here. The first time I killed someone, it was with this. It's good luck."

"How delightful," Scully replies. "Are you now going to recite poetry to commemorate the event?"

"I could," I say. She takes the gun from me. "Would you like to hear it?"

She opens the car door and looks back at me angrily. "Spit it out," she growls.

"Think about this as you go bounding out to save the world in a blaze of homicidal glory," I say, remembering a few lines from a poem English Jake taught me when I was just a kid. Maybe it was my mother. I don't remember. "We are not sure of sorrow-- and joy was never sure. Today will die tomorrow-- time stoops to no man's lure. And love, grown faint and fretful, with lips but half regretful sighs, and with eyes forgetful weeps that no love endures."

"See you at the rendezvous," she says, eyes blank. "Hope you don't get dead."

"Ditto," I call as she walks away. I take a deep breath. It's my turn to get into the game. Scully-- actually everyone-- thinks I'm just staying here, waiting like a good little godfather. Hardly. As much as I'm crazy about the girl, I'm aware she's going to try and kill the real love of her life. What I'm doing is a fail-safe, just in case she can't.

I let myself get carried away in a torrent of alien-worshipper frat boys who are hollering about the Prophet like he fronts a surf-punk- boy-band. I stay quiet, try to be loose, try not to think of what could go wrong.

My cell vibrates. I pick up, breathless.

"Johnny, where the fuck are you?"

"With the people, Nico," I say, drawling. "I'm heading for the stage."

"You're what?"

"Is everything else in order?"

"It's going according to plan. What the fuck do you think you're doing? Get back to the car!" he screams.

"Nope, sorry," I say. "Keep up the good work."

I hang up on him. I wait, aware that the crowd is getting worked up to a fever pitch, that Mulder is about to make his grand appearance soon-- oh, so very soon. I think about the gun hidden in my ankle holster. I think about this being over and escaping somewhere-- South America, East Asia, Canada-- to get free of this world I don't trust anymore.

I turn my head because something is moving wrong out of the corner of my eye. I wonder for a moment what's going on and then, I know. I can't believe it.

Jeffrey motherfucking Spender is walking my way. The rat bastard has a gun. He has a gun right here right now when Mulder is making his triumphant way on stage (I can tell from the cheers of the crowd) and he's got it aimed at me.

Fuck aimed. He's fired. Fuck fired.

I am about to die.

Again.

* * *

 

**Mulder:**

I was called to serve the truth from the first moment I started breathing again. I won't say it's been easy. I lost the life I knew and everyone I loved, but it was fate. I was always meant to be a prophet. It just took their help for me to realize it.

It's always been my fate to be the one who shares the truth with the world. That's why they couldn't kill me the first time. Of course I asked why the minute I thought of it. It never made sense to me before. Why not just kill me? What could I have done to them dead? But knowing I was meant to be their prophet changes everything. It puts my life into perspective.

Things (a useful sort of word to describe them) are happening today. I know that they don't think I know that. Today is important for more than one reason to me and to them. I suppose that enlightenment is supposed to make you a trusting idiot somehow, but I've never felt sharper or more sensitive to little things. I know that the people around me are not exactly to be trusted, but that's not a problem. They don't know what they're doing, but I'm a servant of the truth and it'll all work out right in the end.

"Do you remember what you're supposed to do?" one of my new coworkers asks. His name is Harold. He used to work for *her* until he realized that she was-- her. He's all right, even though I don't like the way he looks at me, like I was a big kid or a farm animal. The bullet went through my throat, not my brain.

"Yeah," I tell him. "Do you think **she's** gonna be here?"

"Who, Johnny Valmont?"

I close my eyes. I've told everyone over and over that I don't want to hear that name ever again. Most of the time, they remember. But whenever someone fucks up, they know it. Harold makes a small, weak little noise in his throat.

"Sorry, Mulder," he says. "I forgot you don't like to hear the name."

"Not a problem," I say. "Don't ever do it again."

"Sorry," Harold says. "Oh. And I think she might put in an appearance, the fucking bitch. Fucking nagging bitch, she's gonna get the surprise of her life today."

"Go away," I tell him.

The fucking nagging bitch. It's a wonderful way to put it. She killed me, and not content with that, she killed Scully. They told me how. Scully went to her apartment in New York and Johnny attacked her, stabbed her to death in a fit of frustrated pique. I think of that and it makes me sick. If I didn't have the truth, it would be enough to make my life not worth the bother. Some days, it's still not worth the trouble, but then I realize I have the truth and that's a responsibility I can't get rid of.

"Mulder, you're ready for this, aren't you?"

It's the Old Man. The Old Man is another part of the organization, bland, unmemorable, but when he says something, I get chills down my spine. It reminds me of something that's on the tip of my tongue but never quite there. He reminds me of someone from old times, bad times. I don't know why, but I know that if we weren't both part of the truth, I wouldn't trust him at all.

"Of course I'm ready," I say, looking at him curiously. "Harold just mentioned her and I-- didn't react well."

"It's understandable. But you need to remember, Fox," he says. "You have to remember you're working for the cause of the greater good."

I know that. I don't understand why everyone thinks I'm an idiot. Maybe they remember how stubborn I was before I died. I'll admit I was an egotistical, obstinate son of a bitch, but I was on to something. It just took some enlightenment to get me all the way to the truth.

"I understand," I say.

A thought occurs to me while I'm pacing back and forth, waiting for the clock to strike one. If I could be brought back-- and I know that I was dead, embraced by the white light, on my way to heaven or hell or limbo-- why not Scully? She deserved to come back at least as much as I did, if not more.

"Could you have brought Scully back?" I ask the Old Man. He looks at me and shakes his head.

"She wasn't ready for this truth. She wasn't a prophet," he says, sweating a little. I know I shouldn't trust him. I don't trust him. I trust the power that brought me back, because it's the power of the truth that did this, that transformed me. He's unimportant. "You need to forget her."

"I'll never forget her," I reply. "If I'm anything, it's because of her."

I hear someone say in a stage whisper, very mockingly, "You complete me."

I look back in the direction of the whisper.

"She had me at hello," I reply sarcastically.

We all laugh. I look at my watch. 12:48. Shit. This is taking forever. I don't understand why we're on such a precision time schedule. I'm here. The crowd is here. I should be out there preaching to the faithful. It's who I am. It's what I do. The truth doesn't follow a schedule.

"I should go out there," I say, looking at the Old Man and Harold. "Do you hear them? I have a duty to them. They're truthseekers, just like all of us."

"Stay here, Mulder. Don't get overzealous. They're here to see you. They can wait," Harold says. "You'd think this was the goddamn Second Coming or something."

I don't know why, but his tone of voice makes me nervous. In fact, this entire business makes me extremely nervous. I didn't want to be here today. I was content moving slowly, finding the people willing to come to me and to the truth. But they told me it was my duty. I am a witness of the truth, they said. They don't act like it. When I look around, I get this sickening feeling that they don't understand that something happened to me. I was changed the day I died. I'm a living witness of the everlasting truths that are out there-- and they stand there, eyes as blank and flat as a television screen.

"Maybe it is," I tell Harold, coming back from my thoughts. "You never know."

"Don't get a Jesus complex, Mulder," Harold snaps. "It's not attractive. Look, you've got five minutes. Take a breather, man; get ready to do your thing. You know what you're going to say?"

I shrug, just to annoy him. "Maybe."

"Mulder!?"

"Yes, of course I know."

"Good," he says. "Just five more minutes. God, this has been long overdue."

I almost ask him what he means. But I realize I don't want to know. I don't need to know. I'm the witness. I'm the prophet. Even if I'm surrounded by Judases and doubting Thomases, I know what I'm doing is the right thing to do.

I wish Scully were here. If I had her, I would feel stronger. But even without her, I know it's right. I know I'm making her proud.

The Mall is crawling with people. I sneak a look before I walk back to where everyone's waiting. I didn't realize so many people were listening. I didn't realize so many people were looking. It gives me hope. I am doing something that's helping the world find the truth. For some reason, that calms me down.

I only wanted to be a good man. That's all I've ever wanted. I wanted to be worthy of being loved, of being great. Have I finally reached that point? By giving up all the things I thought made me happy, have I become the man I always wanted to be?

Scully, if you're out there, anywhere, have I done it right? I want-- I always wanted-- to conduct each day of my life in the best possible way. I always thought the search for the truth was the right way. Was it?

Even if it wasn't, I don't feel remorse. I was born this way and I must have this. And I had you, for however briefly. Scully, none of us gets out of this life alive.

I check my watch. It's time for me to go. I turn, and walk towards the stage. The murmur of the crowd becomes hysterics. I feel like I could be made of light. I understand it all now. This was how it was supposed to be. I am accepting this.

The crowd is mine. I belong to the truth, as we all do. I stare out over the crowd, awed at how people ripple and move like the water. It's dazzling. I can't look at them too long. I turn my head, expecting to see Harold and the Old Man or any of that crowd.

They're not there. Instead there's a woman standing there, staring at me. She's wearing black leather underneath a coat. I remember the coat from somewhere. But who is she? I don't recognize her face. I think I should. But I don't, not at all.

She pulls out a gun. I turn my head back towards the crowd, looking at them shimmer and fade. My ears are ringing. The entire world is ringing.

God, Scully. It's beautiful. It's all so beautiful...

* * *

 

**Skinner:**

How nice of Johnny to let me take care of the clean up, I think as I survey the results of her blowout on the Mall. I see telltale signs of her involvement in this riot everywhere, but she's nowhere to be found. That truly annoys me, because she really deserves to be dragged in for questioning concerning this mess.

It could have been worse, but not by much, I think as I wade through the police squads and teary rioters. I go over the list of events in my head. The FBI was already on edge about this Citadel of the Last Days gathering when it went awry. A man who looked exactly like Fox Mulder walked onstage at exactly one o'clock today. Thirty seconds later, a woman in a trenchcoat and a black leather catsuit aimed a semi- automatic at his skull, fired, and splattered his brains all over the stage. Nobody can identify her. The crowd went insane, absolutely fucking nuts. The woman got away, just disappeared into the absolute chaos. I have my suspicions about who she was, but I'm keeping them to myself.

We've found at least one hundred and fifty dead so far, not counting Mulder. The worst so far is a nine-year-old boy who was probably not even a part of the Citadel rally. He was trampled into oblivion by the crowd and the emergency crews are having a hard time just scraping him out of the dirt. What's worse is that we haven't even found all of the bodies yet. Every emergency and crime agency in DC is going to be here for a week finding bodies, fingers, blood, et cetera. The news crews are on us like flies on a corpse and every fifteen minutes, some jackass is sticking a mike in my face, asking what I think of this tragedy.

What do I think of this tragedy? I think it's lucky these clowns didn't bring down some real extraterrestrial intervention. My working theory is that Johnny was actually trying to do something generous for the species. I suspect these guys were going to start Armageddon in the midst of alien love and peace. If that's true, I don't particularly want to throw Johnny in jail to rot. Also, it explains why I haven't heard anything from the ever-so-charming mother of my child in three weeks.

That, if anything, is making me antsy. After nearly a year of being summarily told to fuck off concerning Danielle, for Johnny to abandon her with me isn't right. Still, I can't imagine Johnny leaving the country without her.

I need to call Johnny. I need to figure out what the fuck she was doing, setting off this riot on the Mall. I assume she didn't do it for shits and giggles. That's not her style. I know killing Mulder was important, but why in public? Why would she do this just to kill Mulder? And what makes me even more nervous is that I saw Fox Mulder's body. I saw him dead as a doornail. The fact that he was walking around to get his head blown off is suspicious enough. The suspicion that he was walking around with... certain people... makes it worse.

There is a greater purpose at work here, a rhyme that makes reason. I can see it in today's actions. Johnny and Scully do not believe in senseless violence. That makes looking at the carnage a little more comforting, but at the same time I'm puzzled about why. Their motivation and their plot elude me. I don't like that at all.

Before I can think anymore about the odd, unholy pairing of Johnny Valmont and Scully in this matter, I turn and notice one of the new agents half-waving at me to get my attention. I clear my throat quickly. I've got to pull together. At this point, we're still trying to figure out just how many bodies we have. The whys and whats and whos will come together later.

The new guy chugs up to me, nodding seriously. "AD Skinner," he says seriously. I realize I've forgotten his name.

"Yes, Agent--" I say, pausing.

"Caulfield," he says, giving me a sharp nod. Agent Caulfield, FBI. The guy looks about twenty-five, very serious, very clean-cut-- too clean for this sort of work. "You were asking me if I could find anyone to identify this woman?"

"Yes," I say, examining his photograph of Johnny. She looks so angry in the picture. I don't know why, but she doesn't photograph well, either. It's strange but true. "Did you find anything?"

"I met a few people who said they saw her talking to our lady assassin by a black sedan before the entire explosion. Of course, they couldn't give me a damn detail about her except she had red hair and was a real 'motherfucking badass' type. I think they were referring to the leather. They couldn't give me any worthwhile description," Caulfield says. "She was most likely here."

"That's good to hear," I say. So Johnny was here, probably watching and sneering from a black sedan. Scully is probably out of the country by now. They're probably both out of the country by now. Shit.

"Sir, who is she?" Caulfield asks. He looks very serious and I suddenly realize that I shouldn't be here. I have a personal conflict with this case. But I'm here now. I'll just have to do my best.

"I'm not at liberty to--" and then I stop. A white limousine has stopped right near the crime tape and Dana Scully is standing there, defiant, in an outfit that is carefully different from the woman in the black catsuit. She's looking at me quietly, waiting for me.

"Sir?"

I am getting too old for this. I'm getting cynical, too. But I still run dutifully over to the agent, thinking. The idea that Johnny-- and Scully-- pulled this off and then ran like frightened children sits wrong with me. It doesn't sound like them. I don't know. All that I know is that I'm stuck in the middle of this case, the law on the left, my personal life on the right.

"Sir, do you see that redheaded woman over there?" he asks insistently. "Could that be our assassin?"

"No," I say quickly. "She's former FBI. The car must belong to her employer. Excuse me, I need to go speak to her."

I walk over, slowly but steady, when I notice that Johnny is sitting in the limousine, slumped oddly. I suppose she's tired. I'm tired after an entire day of the runaround.

"Scully, what the hell is going on here? What-- what the hell did you two do? Why?"

"Look, Skinner," she says in a voice that's dripping with control and exhaustion. "I think you're making a dangerous assumption. It's been a long day."

"A hundred and fifty people are dead, and Mulder--"

"Mulder's been dead for six months," she tells me coldly. "Whatever you think is wrong, Skinner."

"So why don't you explain it to me?"

"Not today," she says. "I-- we're going to celebrate. And she's not really well. I think the excitement got to her."

"That's not acceptable, Scully."

"It'll have to be, sir. Unless you're going to arrest me for something right now," she says, putting her hands on her hips.

I stare at her. "Scully--"

"Well?" she asks. I realize I have no power over her whatsoever. She's going to walk away clean. Maybe she is clean, but I doubt it. Justice is not being served today.

"Be available for questioning," I tell her.

"Yeah," she says, getting back into the car and shutting the door. Then she's gone for good.

I watch the car drive away into the sunset, my mouth open. Johnny will be fine, I'm sure, as she trundles away triumphantly after saving the world and getting the girl she was never supposed to get. Scully shouldn't be with her, but she is. And they're going out to celebrate. I don't understand it. I don't understand anything.

Danielle is waiting at home. I should go, let people who are younger and less ambivalent than me take care of this. I need to sit down and think about things. Yeah. I should go home. I don't know what else to do.

"Sir?" Caulfield asked. "Are you all right?"

"I'm not feeling well," I say. It's not a lie, just an exaggeration. "I think that I'm going to pack it in, put some new people on the job here. Why don't you go see if you can get more information about the woman in the photograph and our assassin?"

"Yes, sir," he says. Thank God some people in this world still have a sense of duty. He leaves me alone and as I walk towards the makeshift FBI command post in the slowly fading afternoon, I realize the world feels older than it ever has before. I don't know why I came here at all. Or maybe that's just me. I wonder what it is I should do, but really--

I don't understand anything anymore. And that's all there is to say.

* * *

 

**Scully:**

The limousine moves away so slowly. I shouldn't have been so pushy with the driver, but I realized fairly soon after I reached the black sedan and Johnny wasn't there that the police would be looking for this car. I've picked up a habit of being inventive in crisis and that includes what I'm doing with Johnny right now.

It all makes sense now, in a strange, twisted way I never would have thought of at the beginning. I meant to destroy Johnny and I did. Strangely enough, that doesn't do anything for me now. Instead of feeling pleased, I don't feel anything. Maybe it's because she's dead. That's probably it.

My God, she's dead. Spender put a bullet through her. And I waved him off and plopped the body into the limousine. We've been sitting here for so long, because I didn't know what to do. I still don't know what to do, but I can't have the cops poking their noses in here.

Damn, it was close. The entire thing was too close for comfort and it was all her motherfucking fault. I look at her, slumped against the side of the car.

Poor Johnny. If only she'd had a little trust in me. I check to see if the limo driver's panel is up. It is. I turn back to the body of my lover and pat it on the cheek.

"I have some things to tell you, Johnny," I say lightly. "Are you listening?"

She doesn't answer. Corpses rarely do.

"You brought me here. It was all your fault. You drove me to this point in time where I could choose with no obligation to anyone what I wanted to do next," I tell her. I pause for a moment. "Thank you."

I turn my head and look out the window. This is so strange. I still don't know where we're going, either. I gave up my apartment in Georgetown months ago. Mulder's place has long since been rented out. I twist my hands together. I don't have anywhere to go in Washington anymore.

"You were right, you know," I say calmly. "You were right in your way about so many things. Of course, you were also wrong, but for now, you were right. It wasn't him, Johnny. He didn't recognize me. Whoever he was or believed he was, that wasn't Mulder."

I suddenly realize if I stopped the car, got out, and walked away, no one would follow me. I can do whatever I want now. Mulder is dead. Even his ghost doesn't haunt me anymore. Johnny is dead and she's too generous somehow to haunt me. As for anyone else, their interest in me is pale compared to Johnny and Mulder.

I'm free. I am absolutely at leisure to be anyone, to do anything, and I suddenly realize it scares me to death. What am I going to do?

Johnny slumps further down. The blood is starting to settle in her body. I shouldn't have moved the body, but I did. She wouldn't have wanted to be one of the dead rioters. She wouldn't have wanted to be dead. Johnny wanted to live forever.

My hands stop moving. A terrible, cruel idea has sneaked into my brain and I don't know if I'm strong enough to stop it.

"Have you ever considered retiring, Johnny?" I ask her. "Guiding a successor into your role in the consortium?"

The silence is deafening. But I can't get the idea out of my head. Like I told Johnny, the truth is my life, as much as it ever was hers or Mulder's. This is my life. This is my quest. And finally, I could be the one making order. I could change the world.

"I have an idea, Johnny," I tell her. She stays quiet. "You're going to retire. I've heard you talk about it before. This burnt you out. It's a pity. You weren't even thirty yet."

The window is still up. I don't really have to talk to Johnny at all. But I choose to. In some morbid way, I want to get her blessing.

She never reached thirty. God, I think suddenly, feeling sick and sad. All of that living and she was still so young.

"It'll be just like the Mafia," I tell her. "You're still going to rule the world. I'll just be a puppet, someone you maneuver around with invisible strings, implementing your policies, doing the dirty work day-to-day and you'll just stay in seclusion."

The idea makes so much perverse sense. I'm nobody, literally nobody, to these people. But Johnny, especially after the success of today, is the stuff of legend. I look down at the body and giggle hysterically. My God, I'm going to do this. I'm really going to do this.

"It's going to be amazing," I marvel to her. "Your name is going to make it into the history books and I'll be a smudge, the way it was with Mulder, the way it's always been. And it'll be a myth, every last bit of it."

There are only three people on earth who realize she's dead. Me, the driver, and Jeff Spender. Spender's not a problem-- he'll run until the end of the world. I'm not worried about him. The driver is less trustworthy. He's just a rental. But he has to know I'm riding around DC with a corpse I need to get rid of. Shit.

But I can't let the little things hold me back. Either this guy will follow my instructions or I'll leave two bodies in this limo in a second. He doesn't have to be a question mark if I don't want him to be, because I have made a choice and nothing's going to pull me away from this course.

"I'm sorry I'm going to have to make you the worst person in history, Johnny," I apologize to her as we turn another corner. "But that's my real revenge on you. Everything else didn't work, somehow or another. But when I'm exposing the truth and changing everything, it's your name that's going to get dirty. You can appreciate that, can't you?"

Her head slumps further away from me. The silence of the dead speaks more than the words of living. I can't get away from her silence the way I could from her words. But I know, somehow, that she would approve. Yes, what I'm doing is macabre and disgusting but I'm not doing it for me. There's something larger that's going on, something that doesn't appreciate subtlety and compassion. I'm doing what I have to do.

"It's going to be some interesting times ahead. You and I make a good team," I say, twisting my mouth into a grin. "Maybe the best team. And I'm sorry about your mother."

And I'm sorry, I think but don't say, about you. We drive down another long street and I realize I am sorry, I really am. But there's not enough time for sympathy. I think about that, time and sympathy and death and tomorrow as the sun sets on this world, the last time on the world I used to know.

Something new is coming, for me, for everyone. I can almost hear it in the growl of the engine. I look at Johnny's body, watching its stillness as it lies against the side of the car, the stiffness sneaking through her body as light slips away from us. I watch her. In her strange, unearthly silence, it suddenly all makes sense. And I hear her, almost, whispering the words to me as I prepare for the rest of my life, alone in a new world:

"From too much love of living, from hope and fear set free, we thank with brief thanksgiving whatever gods may be--"

The sun sets. I realize that nothing is certain. I could wake up tomorrow and the world could be over. This is still what we do, because it's the thing I've chosen to do.

We keep driving. We don't stop. We just follow the road and be damned to everything else. I still belong to myself until morning.

And then--

I refuse to think about it.

I still belong to myself until morning.


End file.
